By Emily Correa, Certified Life/Business Coach/Co-Founder with Creative Spotlights CEO, Dani Felt
“What are you doing wrong?” you think as you head to your weekend dive bar gig to play for a half room full of drunk people.
You gave up the science college degree to live “a wondrous life of music”, to play in front of HUGE stadiums of excited fans who actually spent gas money to see you live, to see your rad rocker stage name in lights on a photoshopped 300-foot Times Square print ad of you with the new version of the IPhone, not to...stare at your new Youtube channel trying to figure out how to do a song cover (those actually do work…).
You have the passion, but you are COMPLETELY frustrated. No one is paying you for anything, but you are still spending the time, and you just KNOW music is what you are meant to DO, right?!
You are totally confused (or just blindsided to your lack of progress, where’s the free beer?) and you have no clue where to go for the answers.
Have no fear, here are The Top 3 Roadblocks to Music Career Success from the Co-Founders of
www.CreativeSpotlights.com and authors of “In The Spotlight: Over 100 Voices in Music.” Listen up, you might learn a thing or two:
Roadblock #1: Lack of VisionThe music artist’s life is full of mystery, twists and turns, chance encounters with your rock idols, it’s awesome to live it on the edge, moment-to-moment + day-by-day, right? Wrong. That’s definitely fun but….really dangerous for your bills and a great way to waste your time and resources. You sorta need those things to have a long career in music!
As a certified coach I tell all the artists we work with this: You need a strong vision of where you see yourself specifically a year from now based on your best habits which should be playing gigs regularly, scouting for gigs, going to networking events, aka doing sh*t right.
You should also go for a good healthy 5 year vision of your music career to create an energetic anchor to your ideal future!
Next, you might as well break that one year into a plan for the next 6 months, then break it further in 3 months, then one month, then weekly, then yes... daily. Goal setting baby!
You might hate it, but like a fish in the ocean swimming all over the place, the directionless go nowhere and waste ALOT OF TIME. The bee has a plan, he needs pollen to make honey, he goes and look for it, he gets it, brings it back to his colony, makes honey and lives the good life for a while. Which one you rather be? A laissez -faire life fish without a purpose or a killer bee that MAKES his LIFE matter with a plan?
Do not waste time, make those goals, know that yes they will change and not be set in stone, but you still need them. Why?
Because you are shifting your ENTIRE psychic energy + thought patterns + aura + influence in your social circle towards your FUTURE greatness, and this quadruples your success in as a SHORT A PERIOD OF TIME as possible. As a music artist, you are fighting almost against the WHOLE WORLD to be heard. Why are you making things harder?
Dani says “ If you want to be a singer, visualize being on tour, where you want to go, what type of music you want to sing, set goals! That is exactly what we do to after all of our own dreams. If you can’t see it, you can’t create it.”
Roadblock #2: Toxic Inner Circle of Friends (and False Alliances)You are a music artist, which means you are a vibrant society shifter who is tapped into the creative power of the universe (well, as a life/business coach that’s how I see it).
But let’s be for real...what’s going on with the synergy in your band? Who is motivating you and who is killing your dreams?
In the music industry (just about any of the arts) your BS meter must be on high.
Not for you to be some big skeptic but you gotta seek your like-minded spiritual creative family. Those who will vouch for you, give you the good times, listen to your plans but still be part of your journey through the bad times. Basically those you can open your heart, knowing they are doing the same.
Yes you are all working separately on your own dreams but part of the same big dream together.
If you are noticing that your life is getting full of drama, full of more frustration than the good times, you might have to take a look at those closest to you and see what is really happening there.
As a creative, you can easily merge energies with the wrong people towards a destructive or self-sabotaging life path that is gonna mess up your chances for music career success. The truth is...everyone has their own inner circles, and like the planets rotating around the sun, as a creative being you are the sun. So, what is surrounding you?
My business partner Dani and I have come across many toxic business alliances and false supporters over the last 2.5 years working together. It’s crazy because we basically have formed an inspirational book to help and heal artists! But the toxic alliances still have shown up.
So we learned to intentionally put a filter so we release them from our energy field as swiftly as possible. You cannot prevent the bad, self-sabotaging types in the music industry from coming and interacting with you, because you have the lesson to learn, don’t you? Learn it, but hold your armor high! And be strong and get rid of them head-on, they will reveal themselves if you expect it. Be full of light yourself though, no hypocrisy! And know that your career and life are wayyy more valuable to society than that.
Dani says “There is a saying who you surround yourself with you become. If you have around you pessimistic people who don't want to succeed or don't believe they will be successful, you will start picking up on those same thought patterns into your subconscious. Surround yourself with people who work hard, people who are always striving to be better, to grow, to learn, people who push themselves. Most of all people with a positive attitude, this will make a big difference in yourself becoming successful”.
Roadblock #3: Lack of NetworkingSo what are you doing with your Saturday night? Partying it away? But aren’t you supposed to be….? Building a dream? They say it’s not “what you know but who you know.” What do you think about that?
We at Creative Spotlights started 2.5 years ago to make our book “In the Spotlight: Over 100 Voices in Music” come to life. From the beginning, the book included a third of the 300 artists that Dani had interviewed by her writers over three years of networking. We even met in person while networking, I was hosting artistic networking events on the rooftops of NYC hotspots. Dani and I met on Linkedin first (she was looking for entertainment writers, lucky me), but I had invited her to come to my event to talk about the opportunity. When I met this vivacious totally authentic young woman, I never knew she would become my business partner for Creative Spotlights and we would turn it into a full scale artist development + management for all creatives. I didn’t know I would become an entertainment writer, and my first interview by chance was Justin Bieber’s producer, then the next one was John Legend’s producer, then the Co-Founder of ReverbNation and many other music industry greats.
I definitely didn’t see that I would interview the VP of big music union SESAC, Trevor Gale, then he would give us press passes to cover the 2014 Pop Awards where I met the writers of Rihanna, Chris Brown and meet winners of the year, the American Authors. I didn’t know we would get offered our own weekly interview show “Backstage with the Artists” on a totally new music video channel MY JAM TV to kick off end of this year. That we would work on our next book on the acting industry, and even be writing this article for you guys right now.
What we know: It just takes one chance encounter with the right, like-minded alliance to put you on your destiny of greatness. But it takes the work, WHAT you know and WHO you know, the thousands (yes its true..years!) of hours getting to that greatness, the creation of a balanced inner world, & the design of the right outer world of people and projects that bring you to those higher levels. How will you get there if you are not looking?
Dani says “There is a whole world out there, the worse thing you can do is sit at home and not go out. It is vital to be social and connect with people outside your social circle. There are a million events always going on. Use sites like eventbrite.com, meetup.com, linkedin, or go to music business/music industry executive parties, find things to do. I would suggest you go out once a week at least to meet new people. Go learn, go network, trade business cards, go to shows and always meet new people. That is what I do all the time in NYC! You never know the next person you are going to meet on the A train subway going uptown to your next music gig and how they can end up helping your career.”
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Did you like this article? Stay tuned for Part 2: 3 More Roadblocks to Music Career Success by Emily Correa & Dani Felt of Creative Spotlights! And check out a whole book of advice on Amazon and Kindle for “In the Spotlight: Over 100 Voices in Music.
Creative Spotlights LLC is an artist development + management with reach in NYC, Miami, Los Angeles and Nashville that is dedicated to inspiring & guiding those in the arts/entertainment industry through publicity, promotion and career development. Founded in 2010 by Dani Felt, it served as an ambitious music blog site featuring over 300 + interviews. In partnership with certified life/business coach and Co-Founder Emily Correa in 2014, with the co-design of “In the Spotlight: Over 100 Voices in Music” and a creative team, a power alliance has since evolved to truly support all artists to strategically go after their dreams. More information can be found at:
www.CreativeSpotlights.com.
