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Hey, this is Matthew Ricks.
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And today on the Music Business newsletter, we got an
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email from an artist who wants to tell us what
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he's learned after he stopped just treating his music.
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Kind of passively.
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And I'll get to it and when I get to it,
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but before we jump into this awesome email, if you
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have a question on the music industry that you'd like
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for me to answer, just go to Matthewricks dot com
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click submit your question, give me as many details as possible,
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and we will answer it here on the channel. Now
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for the email, he says, Hey, Matthew, I've been listening
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to the Matrics Minutes for a few years now and
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a lot of what you talk about has helped shift
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my thinking. Well that was the whole point in twenty
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fourteen when we started twenty four twelve years now. Granted
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we haven't done the Matrics Minute, you know, consistently, and
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we took some time off at different points in the
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last twelve years, but to think, like just said back
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and just be like it has been twelve years since
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we release that thing. Here's a fun little bit of information.
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When I release the Matrics Minute, and I already talk
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talked about how I recorded them in my car when
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we first started going, I would just talking to my phone.
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But we needed an album cover, and I didn't have
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a lot of pictures at the time that weren't owned
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by somebody else. So I was in like a year
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or two prior. I was in New York City at
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the Plaza Hotel and I was wearing a suit and
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a shirt and I took a picture a selfie by
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the elevator for whatever reason, and I was like, let's
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use that, and that thing like as it kept growing,
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I was like, that picture's horrible. But anyways, he says,
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the things I've learned from the Mattricks Minute, especially the
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parts about consistency, structure, building relationships, and doing things even
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when they don't feel perfect.
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So thank you for that, he said.
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I wanted to write in let you and your viewers
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know something I've been wrestling with recently that finally clicked
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for me after way longer than it should have. He says,
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for years, I treated my music like a side thing, emotional, meaningful,
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but incredibly unstructured. If I had time, I worked on songs.
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If I didn't, I didn't it felt if it felt
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good that day, I wrote it. If not, I waited
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for inspiration. I treated every release like something that had
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to be perfect, which meant nothing ever really got finished.
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I stayed emotionally serious about music, but operationally casual. That's
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a good line right there. I stayed emotionally serious about
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music but operationally casual.
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How many things in our lives could we have that about.
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I mean, you know, if you're married, if you're like, yeah, emotionally,
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I was really invested, but I just didn't really care.
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It's kind of checked out. Netflix is more important than
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my significant other. Same thing with going to the jym,
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eating healthy. You're building your career in music, he said.
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Then something changed.
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I wrote it article where someone said that once they
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added structure, time blocks, real deadlines, and actual deliverables, everything
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in music, in my music life started to move differently,
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he said, not necessarily faster, but cleaner and more intentional.
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It wasn't about creativity happening on demand. It was about
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execution happening period. And then I found the matrics minute
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on a random Google search. Thank you, So you know
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what happened when you got your structure was that it
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was I think sometimes as a creative we can push
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it I'm not feeling it, but I gotta I gotta
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do it.
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It's like almost like you're.
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Just checking it off the list, and that can be
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kind of burn in something. But if you're always sitting
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around just waiting for inspiration, it's never going to come.
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What happened is is it's like it's almost like buying
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fake plays for Spotify. You'll just see a spike and
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then you'll just see that. It's like you keep crashing out.
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So if every day you commit to doing something, which
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is what I tell artists on these music newsletters and
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everything is like at night, just commit to building your
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fan base. Just commit to posting. You know, if you're
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writing music, commit just time. Most of the stuff you're
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gonna write, no one's ever gonna hear. Most of the
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stuff you write tomorrow will not see the next day.
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But you got to just put your reps in. It's
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like anything nothing in life is going to be excellent
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for you if you don't practice at it, if you
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don't do the things that the other people refuse to do.
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When we are going out in twenty fourteen, twenty fifteen,
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we're doing these speaking events, traveling the world, I would
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always commend the artists who showed up, and it's because
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you did what the others made excuses that they couldn't do.
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Winners do the stuff that the losers refuse to do.
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It's just the way it is. That's like anything in life.
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If you don't show up, you're not going to succeed,
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he says. For the past few months, I've started treating
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my music career like a project with a timeline instead
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of an emotion with no calendar. I do things like
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schedule time every week for writing instead of waiting for inspiration.
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Beautiful and let me let me add here. When you're
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scheduling time to write and you write, it doesn't have
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to be great. Just get it out there because it
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might be. You might You might spend all night working
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on one line and be like, well, that was a
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waste of a night. But then a month later you'll
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come back to it, or you'll need that line, and
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then instantly things will things will just take off from
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that one night that you didn't really see any progress,
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he says. I set release deadlines and stick to them
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no matter what perfect he goes. I plan social promo
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show routes.
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He goes.
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I plan social promo show routes weeks ahead instead of
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randomly posting when I feel like it. I mean, all
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that stuff is available for you to schedule, so you
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don't have to just like randomly do it.
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You can come up with a consistent plan.
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He said, break big goals into weekly small actions, and
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I can actually finish.
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This is awesome, my guy, he said.
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The funny thing is nothing magical happened overnight. I didn't
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suddenly get signed or blow up on Spotify. But everything
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feels more real. I see a gradual, sudden shift happening.
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Slow and ste I've been saying slow instead. He wins
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the race for twelve years, he says, I'm shipping music,
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I'm finishing projects, and most importantly, I'm building momentum instead
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of spinning in circles. Because what you're doing is you're
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actually becoming the master of your destiny instead of just
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like letting the currents and the wind and the weather
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and everything else dictate where you're going. You're like, I'm
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committed to doing this. It's one of those mindsets you
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have to have as an artist. If you're gonna take
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the island, you burn the boats like there's no turning back,
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and so many artists we read these emails.
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I get the emails that we don't even.
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Respond to because they're just so stupid. They're not going
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to do anything unless they can get a guarantee it's
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gonna be worth their time. Nothing in life is a
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guarantee besides death and taxes.
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He says, this shift.
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Mattered more than any single opportunity ever did right because
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you weren't waiting for anything to happen.
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You went and created something for you. You know.
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It's most artists want to wait for the phone to
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ring and it never does, and then they're like.
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Well I tried, I did everything I could.
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You many times over the last twenty five years being
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in this industry, you would talk to an artist and
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say I've done everything, and then you ask them what
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they've done and they're like, well, I've done three things,
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because you know, I've done everything, and you're like everything, Well,
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I've done one hundred things, like one hundred things, and
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they're like, okay, I did like three things and they
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gave up. He says, So now I'm trying to think
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about music as something that requires management, not just passion.
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I used to think passion was the hardest part. Now
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I realize it's the consistency and structure that makes passion
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matter without a doubt, without a doubt, He says, I'm
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curious what you think about this idea of treating music
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like a real operation.
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I always talk about you got to have that.
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You got to have that beautiful balance of the art
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and the business, and until you get somebody to take
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over the business, you got to do both. And that
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means being consistent, building that fan base, building those personal
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emotional connections with people, be invisible, reaching out to people,
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cold calling, being rejected. You're gonna send DMS to people
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that follow your account, They're never going to respond. So
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what you move on? You worry about the people who
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do respond, He says. Lot of artists talk about inspiration
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and emotion, but not as many talk about the discipline
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that has to underlie everything that it follows. Well, no,
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they don't talk about discipline because they don't have discipline.
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Why do you, I mean, how are you gonna how
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are you gonna? How are you gonna preach about discipline?
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But you are drunk, or you're addicted to you know, narcotics,
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or you don't pick up your instrument, and play every day.
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Look at a great athlete. A great athlete doesn't just
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practice on game day. A great athlete practices six seven times.
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A week when there is no games.
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You have to have that same discipline, the same structure.
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You see it with the Jim Brose. You see it
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with people when it comes to college. You're never you know,
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how are you gonna be a lawyer or a doctor,
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And you know, don't do anything besides once a week
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show up and go to class. You don't do any homework,
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you don't do any studies, you don't do anything.
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How are you gonna do that? And there's no different
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in music.
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He said, what you've said before about execute being more
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important than perfection really resonates with this and my new
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game plan.
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He says.
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I'm grateful for the clarity that the shift has given me,
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and I want to hear your take on how artists
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move from being casual creators to actual career builders. Thanks
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for everything, Thanks for the insight, Bob. I mean, if
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you want to know, you want to know how to
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move from being casual creators to actual career builders, you
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got to just be consistent, and you're doing it consistent
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with your release schedule, consistent when it comes to posting,
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consistent with writing, consistent with trying to book shows.
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That consistency is what will give.
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You an advantage over everybody, because most artists love to
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talk a big game. Most artists love to you know,
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they love to tell you. I mean, you see all
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the emails we get on this channel.
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Everybody's got an excuse. I don't have time. I'm blaming
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the algorithm.
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It Spotify's fault, it's the industry's fault, it was our
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manager's fault. You gotta take you gotta take your career
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in your own hands. And what happened with you is
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I think you probably got tired of just mediocrity and
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you're like, I'm going to do something, and I think
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we all get to that point. It's it's like I
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tell people, can you change your life.
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In an instant? People go no, and I'm like, of
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course you can.
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The minute you decide no more, never again, I'm not
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going to do it.
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I'm not going to be this way. You know. I
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have a dear friend that just a year.
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Ago was you know, five eight five nine, weighed three
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hundred and thirty pounds. He's down to two thirty in
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a year. How never again did he lose one hundred
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pounds in one night.
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No, but he.
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Changed his life that day when he said no more.
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You said in this email in you changed your career
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that day when you said no more and you came
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into structure. Now, I will caution you with this, don't
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become too structured, because then you're gonna just be it's
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You're just gonna be a robot.
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You know, it's gonna be just very rigid.
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Everything's gonna be like you could be, you know, writing
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a song and you're like, Okay, time's up. Now gonna
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go do the other thing on my schedule. Have the structure, yes,
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but be flexible to be able to bounce around as
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inspiration hits, because you are still at the end of
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the day, and artists and you, still at the end
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of the day need that inspiration. And the best way
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to kill inspiration is to be like overly structured, overly