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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