Going All In on Your Music Career
What backdoors have you yet to close? What escape hatches have you left open? What backup plans are you keeping in play just in case things don’t go well in your music career?
I’m all for being practical. I’ve benefited greatly from prioritizing work that was the meeting place of what I was good at, what I enjoyed, and what I could get paid for.
And it’s good to identify “what if” scenarios too. Because the biggest thing you realize about the worst-case scenario is that a) it’s unlikely to happen, and b) it’s not as bad as you think it is.
But oftentimes, we hold back. Just in case things don’t work out, we keep doors open and prepare for emergency scenarios.
(I could swear this is what happened with one of my ex-girlfriends. Just in case things didn’t work out with me, she’d identified someone else who was single, had a similar temperament, and played guitar).
Until we go all in, though, we’ll never get to experience what it feels like to be fully sold out to our passion and purpose.
In summer 2019, I made the decision to start traveling the world. Things weren’t going well with my relationship, and I felt the next critical step to my growth would be experiencing different cultures, languages, people, and food.
In October of the same year, I left Calgary, AB behind and moved to Abbotsford, BC. A week before my move, I didn’t even know whether I’d have a place to stay. I was just committed to making a change. It was only a few days before my move that I had finally confirmed a basement suite.
To get to Abbotsford, BC, I needed to drive through the Coquihalla Highway, which reaches an elevation of 4,081 feet. My car started exhibiting unusual behavior on the highway and by the time I’d reached Hope, BC, roughly an hour away from my destination, my car broke down.
I thought the car could be repaired, but the mechanics told me that it was irreparable.
With all the trials and tribulations, I’d experienced up to that point in completing the move, I wanted to give up. But I knew there was no turning back. I was only an hour from my destination, and I had to keep moving forward.
I burned the ships and just kept going.
Have you burned the ships?
For a proven, step-by-step framework in cracking the code to independent music career success, and additional in-depth insights into making your passion sustainable and profitable, be sure to pick up my best-selling guide, The Music Entrepreneur Code.
