Nov. 26, 2025

Can Introverts Still Succeed in Music?

Can Introverts Still Succeed in Music?
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Can Introverts Still Succeed in Music?

In this episode of the Music Business Newsletter with Matthew Rix, I read one of the most honest and heartbreaking emails I’ve received in a while.
A 26-year-old songwriter from Portland reached out because he feels like the industry is leaving him behind.
He loves writing music. He loves the craft. He’s spent years building his sound.
But he absolutely shuts down the second a camera turns on.
He hates filming himself.
He hates watching himself back.
And the constant pressure to become a full-time “content creator” is making him feel like he doesn’t have a future in music at all.
He asked me:
• Can someone who hates being on camera still build a career?
• Does the music even matter anymore?
• Is there a realistic path for introverted artists in 2025?
• Or is he wasting his time because he can’t become what the algorithm wants?
This is a very real fear for many artists right now, and in this episode, I break down what’s actually true and what isn’t.
We talk about:
-Why introverts feel this pressure so deeply
-What the algorithm really cares about
-How to grow without turning into a personality you don’t recognise
-And how to build a career even if you never want to be a “face-forward” creator
If you’ve ever felt burnt out, discouraged, or invisible online, this episode is for you.
Have your own music industry question?
Go to https://MatthewRix.com the more real and detailed it is, the better the advice I can give.
#musicbusiness #musicindustry #artistdevelopment #music #matthewrix


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Hey, this is Matthew Ricks and today i'm the Music

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Business newsletter. We got an email from an introvert probably

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wouldn't want to come on and do an interview. But

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before we dive into that email, if you have a

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question on the music industry that you'd like for me

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to answer, just go to Matthewicks dot com click submit

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your question. Give me as many details as possible. I

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don't need you to become a member, or to buy

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a book, or join a Patreon or any of that nonsense.

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It's absolutely free. Just go to Matthewricks dot com click

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submit your question and we will answer it here on

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the channel. Now for the email, he says, Hey, Matthew,

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I'm writing because I honestly don't know who else to ask.

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I feel stuck in a way that's starting to scare me,

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and I need someone who understands this industry to tell

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me whether I'm being dramatic or whether I should take

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this seriously. I just want to start off by saying

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I'm a guy who's devoted his entire life to the

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music industry. I am not a therapist or a doctor

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or a but I will try my best here, he says,

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I'm based in Portland, Oregon, and I've been making music

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for years. Writing songs is the only thing that feels

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natural to me. I can sit for hours and create.

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That part never feels like work, But everything outside of

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that it's actually becoming unbearable. So you sound kind of

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like a typical artist. Most artists. There's two segments of artists.

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You have the one segment that just loves having the

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camera in their face, just can't get enough of being

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on social media, creating tiktoks, doing dances, whatever. And then

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the other, the other segment is the ones who come

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into social media and the promoting kicking and dragging. You

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just you know they're they're they're screaming, kicking and dragging.

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It's not uncommon for an artist to just rather write

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songs in the studio, play shows, not want to do interviews,

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not want to do tiktoks or instagrams. You have to

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a lot of times with new artists pretty much convince

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them or blackmail them that they have to do it,

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like it's good for their career. But let's continue, he says.

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The problem is I'm an introvert, not the quirky, shy

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kind people joke about. I mean the kind who shuts

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down around cameras, freezes up when a phone is pointed

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at him, and mentally spirals every time I try to

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fill something. Yikes. Um, that is yikes, shutting down around cameras,

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freezes up when a phone is pointed at him, and

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mentally spirals every time I try to film something. I mean,

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have you thought about talking to a therapist, a professional

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about this, because I know that there is You know

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you have some artist the great band Rancid. Tim Armstrong

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from Rancid. He's an introvert. He doesn't do interviews. You're

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not going to see him posting on Instagram. Everything that

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is posted on his official Instagram page is either a

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promo for an artist he's producing or a new painting project,

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and it's not even ran by him. He doesn't. One

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of the nicest people you'll ever meet in the music industry,

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pure pure sweetheart. However, he's just he just doesn't dig it.

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It's just not his thing, and he's kind of It's funny.

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The band's been around now for thirty years and he

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just kind of avoids the spotlight as much as possible,

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and you'll be hard pressed to find a lot of

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interviews of tim. I know artists who have anxiety going

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up on stage. Their heart's racing, poems are sweaty. What

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is that? Mom? Spaghetti? However, when a phone is pointed

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at you, to be spiraling is probably something I would

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suggest talking to a professional about, because that seems kind

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of more severe than a typical artist just have in

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performance anxiety or just being an introvert who doesn't want

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to post their life on Instagram. I think. I mean,

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if you were sitting across from you from a table

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and you brought this all up, I guess I would

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ask you, is where does your mind go when you

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start spiraling? What are you afraid of? But he continues

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here and he says, I hate how I look, I

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hate how I sound, I hate how forced I feel.

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It's like the second I hit record, I stop being

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myself and start overthinking every breath. That's not uncommon. If

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you went back to twenty fourteen and went listen to

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the first Matrix minute from twenty fourteen, it's not great.

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Even if you went and looked at the first video

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newsletter that I did six seven weeks ago, it was

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a little it was a little walky. It was a

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little you got to kind of build into it. Hating

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how you look. I don't know a lot of people

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who are like yo, I look like fire all the time,

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every time I'm on Instagram. Just look like a million bucks.

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I can relate to hating high sound because I hate

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my voice. I think it's too high pitch. I wish

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it was deeper, which people say I'm crazy, but you know, hey,

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I live with it. I live with my voice. You

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start feeling like this the second you hit record, before

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you've even seen the finish product, product went back to

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review it, to edit it. Yeah, that's pretty severe, man.

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You hate how forced you feel like? Like I said,

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go back and listen to the Matrics minute from twenty fourteen.

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Go watch the go You can go watch the first

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interview I ever did on this channel, which was with

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Grade two. Those guys were friends, and I wasn't as

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comfortable as I've been with my last couple of interviews,

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and that was three years ago. The more you do it,

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the better you get, the more comfortable you get. Probably

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right now, if I was just to dissect just this email,

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if you're sitting across from me, I would tell you're

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probably thinking too much. You're probably I mean, if you're

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worried about how you look, how you sound, what shoes

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you're wearing, I shouldn't have wore these pants. Like, you're

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just overthinking everything, And so I would I would tell

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you to really hug yourself, love yourself, figure out why

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you feel this way, but definitely try to get with

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a trained professional who can help you walk through this.

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Just to navigate. I mean, how you don't say if

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you're married or not. But let's say one day you

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do want to get married. Are you not gonna be

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in wedding pictures? Are you not gonna be you know,

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when your kid graduates kindergarten? Are you not gonna be

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in the picture because you're gonna just be spiraling from that?

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Or is a performance based as an artist, because some

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of that might be you just don't feel like the

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songs are good enough, or you don't belong here, or

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nobody cares what you're gonna say. And I think some

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of that is relatable to all artists. You just kind

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of work through it. He continues. He said, it's gotten

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so bad and where the pressure to show my face

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online makes me physically anxious. Yikes. I put myself in

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this category. There's some pretty ugly people in the world

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who are on Instagram, who are on YouTube. All right,

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surely you're not a mutant like yours, truly, and that's

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my owningsciety. I have a brother who's gorgeous, an older

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brother who's gorgeous. So my entire life was always like

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you'd have girls talk to you in high school just

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to get close to your brother. But but but see,

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I got my own therapist and working this through. But

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I get the anxiety about showing your face. I remember

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the the first time I did any of this stuff,

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I was like, I'm like, why do I look like that?

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Why does my chin? Why do I get five chins

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when I when I you know, put my put my

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head back and stuff. It's normal. But to be physically

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anxious about posting online as an artist likes. I just

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keep saying that because I just like, this is pretty

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I know performance anxiety. I know introverts. This is I mean,

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I'm not a doctor, not a therapist, just bird's eye view. Man,

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this is uh, this is pretty severe, he says. Meanwhile,

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everywhere I hear the same message. If you're not posting daily.

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You don't exist. I don't post daily, and I exist, well,

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we do post these newsletters every day, but on Instagram

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and stuff, I don't. But as an artist, you should

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be posting. If yeah, you should be posting, he says. Yeah,

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he goes, I also here, If you're not on TikTok,

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you have no chance. I don't TikTok helps you. It's

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it's it helps you, But you can. There are plenty

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of artists who aren't on TikTok who are just fine,

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but they are somewhere on the internet, he says. I

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also here, you're basically invisible unless the algorithm chooses you. Now,

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that is true. And the way that you do get

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the algorithm to appreciate and value you is to post

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and post consistently, he says. And I am trying, I

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really am. I've filmed hundreds of clips, deleted almost all

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of them. I dated a woman once who if she

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was going to post a picture on Instagram, it didn't matter.

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If it was a couple of picture, a selfie her

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walking through the forest, it didn't matter. There were seventy pictures,

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and then she'd go through and find the best one,

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and it just seems exhausting. I probably should be a

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little bit better at it, because I'm just like, okay,

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let's do it. One snap, I'm out of here. Post it.

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That's I probably should be better at it. But to

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take to have the filmed hundreds of clips and delete

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almost all of them, that's a lot of waste of time.

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What if here's an idea. What if you you film it,

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and then you let somebody else, maybe a significant other,

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maybe a band member, maybe a best friend, post all

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your stuff for you. That way, you just film it,

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you walk away, you don't even have to look at it.

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Here's an idea, He says. I feel stupid and embarrassed

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watching myself back. Yeah, I get somebody else to do

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it for you, he says. It's honestly breaking something in me.

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They used to be excited about music. I can't tell

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you how. I mean, we haven't been doing these newsletters long.

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But how many artists, regardless if it's their entitlement or

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the stupid business decisions they've made, or to the point

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where you have so much anxiety you can't even post.

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All goes back to just man, if you're in your head,

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you're dead. Like if you just live there and you

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think about stuff. You know. I went through a period

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of my life with the Matrics minute where I would

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obsess over them. They never came out because I'd be like,

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I can do better. I can do better because I

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was trying to prove something to people who weren't even listening.

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I was trying to prove and I was like doing

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matrics minutes and taking like subtle shots at these people,

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but they weren't even listening. They didn't care. But that

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caused me to kind of spiral and get in a

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loop where I was like, I can do better, and

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then I would erase it and I never would. I

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lost a year because I was like, Okay, I've had

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this happen. I feel embarrassed. I feel like there's people

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gunning for me. I'm going to respond, and I would

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record it and it wasn't good enough. I was in

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my head. I hated my voice. Oh I can't believe

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I said it that way. I'll do it again. I

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had no team at this moment in time. Nobody'd just

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be like we're going with and knock it off and

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I never got anything out. That was all of twenty

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eighteen twenty nineteen twenty. Whatever the matrics Midted season four was,

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there was an intro and then life just kind of

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went sideways and nothing ever came out nothing, So it continues.

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What scares me the most is that I'm starting to

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believe I don't have a future in this industry solely

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because I can't be a social media performer. You don't

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mention if you play shows or not, So do you

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have anxiety performing shows or is it just a social

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media thing? Because if you're like, yeah, I get up

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on stage and rocket, I just don't like my social media,

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then I would once again suggest cut the clips, record

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the clips, get somebody else to do it. Like they

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you can't even delete them if you wanted to, you'd

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have to break into their house and delete them. Pay

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somebody to do it, Get a buddy to do it,

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somebody who just wants to grow and learn. You don't

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even have to look at your Instagram page. Then just

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let somebody else run it for you. But if you're

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if this is a problem with you live as well,

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the introvertedness is a problem live, You're probably stuck as

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an artist until you get some professional help. Because I

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don't know an artist who is going to be this

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anxious to do the bare minimum stuff in twenty twenty

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five as an artist? But I don't know. You don't

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say anything about your live shows, or you might since

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you don't talk about it, since you don't reference back

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to it, probably means you don't play a lot of shows.

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So if you're not playing shows and you're on social

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media to promote your music, but you can't promote your

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music because you get physically anxious to be on camera,

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you're kind of stuck man, unfortunately, But he continues, he goes,

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He goes, here are the things I'm almost afraid to

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say out loud. Can someone who hates being on camera

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still build a music career today? You can hate being

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on camera. You can absolutely hate being on camera, But

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to the point where you're physically anxious and it's making you,

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like physically sick and you're just kind of stuck, it

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gets a little bit more difficult. Absolutely it does. He goes,

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Is there any path left for artists who aren't natural personalities? Yeah?

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You just have somebody else do everything and you don't

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worry about it. You just smile and let them edit it,

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let them take care of it all that you just

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stay out of the process. He says, does the music

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even matter anymore if you're not constantly performing online? I

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love this question because I get it all the time

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from artists who social media is so stupid. I just

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want to play music. What's the point of being an

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artist if all you gotta do is perform on TikTok

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social media? Being online is a form of marketing. It's

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a form of getting your brand out there. It's a

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form of people finding out who you are. If you

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have social anxiety doing this and you don't want to

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be online, then you're gonna have to go like door

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to door to people in their industry music, and I

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would imagine that would be incredibly anxious to cold approach

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people in person. You probably do not have a day

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job in sales, I would assume, He continues, Am I

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wasting my time if I can't become the type of

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artist the algorithm rewards. Well, you're not. It's see, you're

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blaming the algorithm. Oh, it's the algorithm's fault. You're just

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you're am I wasting my time if I can't become

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the type of artist the algorithm rewards. You're blaming the algorithm.

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It's not that the algorithm's going to reward you. It's

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a you're telling me you have made hundreds of clips

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and you'll lead them all. So you're not even given

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the algorithm a chance to reward you because you're not

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posting anything. So it's not you're not trying to you.

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It's not about the algorithm rewarding you. It's about you're

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not even I think if you went out there. I

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think if you went out there and you started posting,

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and you got out of your head, you'd probably realize

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it's not as big of a deal as you think.

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And the more that you do it, probably your anxiety

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would lessen, and it probably it'd probably be a good

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growing experience for you. He continues, I feel like I'm

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being pushed into a version of myself that doesn't exist.

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That's everyone with social media. You know. It's funny because

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I got a twelve year old and she's kind of

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a natural with film and stuff. She's got a little

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YouTube channel where all she does is she's not on it,

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but she just posts like all the concerts we go

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to and stuff, and she's telling me things like, oh,

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you got to do the video in this panoram and

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you got to do it like this, and she's kind

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of built that way. You know. I'm older, so I'm like, huh,

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and she'll tell me how. We're actually joking earlier today

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because I was like, I thought I was going to

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post a picture of her, and she's like, I'll report

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your page and get it deleted. I'll get your whole

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page deleted. And I'm like, you're twelve, how do you

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know this? I said. I all that to say that

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some artists just aren't comfortable with social media. Some pick

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it up right away. I used to tell people at

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events that we got kids who know how to upgrade

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their iPad before they know how to tie their shoes.

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It's just what this generation is. You seem to be

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more of an old soul, and so the social media

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thing is going to be a little bit harder for

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you to wrap your head around. It's totally understandable, but

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just do it. Just throw it out there, or once again,

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get somebody else to do it so you can't delete it.

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Would probably be if you got to the point where

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you put it online, you'd probably like five seconds later

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be like, oh, there's not a million likes you need

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to delete it right away. He says, all of this

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is making me question whether my dream is realistic anymore. Well,

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if you have physically crippling anxiety about posting online, the

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dream is not looking great because once again, you do

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not tell us what you're like live. Do you can

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you talk to people on stage? Can you talk to

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them at the merchandise table? Who books your shows? Do

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you call them in book? Or is there just like

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massive anxiety when you contact a club or a bar

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to try to get a show. He says, I feel

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desperate for clarity because part of me, part of me,

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is terrified I'm failing before I've even had a chance. Yeah,

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once again, dude, you got to you gotta get with

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a a professional. Here, I would my two things. How

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what tell you to do from uncle matt All right,

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Uncle Matthew, you're cool, Uncle, get somebody to handle your

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social media, do the video editing, and get with a

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trained professional to work through this stuff. Because what you're

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twenty six, dude, You've got a whole life ahead of you.

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That are people are gonna be putting cameras in your face.

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And that's even if you're not an artist. If you

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want to have cool experiences with a significant other. Kids,

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camera's gonna be in your face and you're not gonna

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look great half the time, especially if a kid is

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taking the picture. He says, if you have any honest insight,

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even if it's hard to hear, I really need it.

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You're gonna have to work this out or I don't know,

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write songs. But here's the thing. You can't even be

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a songwriter because you'd have to approach people. And if

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you have massive anxiety or but see you don't say

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do you have anxiety in person or is it just online?

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Because if you have anxiety just online, then you could

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hold approach artists to write songs for them and just

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be a songwriter and just be an introvert and not

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really have to be online. If you ever want to

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Grammy though, Bro, your head would explode if you had

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to walk out in front of all those people. But

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what I would tell you to do if you're sabotaging

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your social media this much, get a friend who records

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the videos so you can't delete them, Let them post it.

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I'd even lock you out of your Instagram account because

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I would not for a second trust you that you're

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not going to go in and just delete it in

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the middle of the night because your anxiety is so crippling.

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And two, I would get with a trained professional who

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can help work through this anxiety because this is not

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typical introverted artist with performance anxiety. Or I don't like

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social media, but I do it like this is crippling,

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and I feel sorry for you man, because you have

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a song that people need to hear, you have a

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voice that people need to hear, and they can't hear it.

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If this is so crippling that you're just kind of stuck.

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But thanks for the email. If you have a question

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on the music industry that you'd like for me to answer,

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just go to Matthewricks dot com click submit your question,

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give me as many details as possible, and until next time,

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I will talk to you later.