Taking Full Responsibility of Your Music Career

Abstractions and emotions rule most music careers. Because career activity is driven by abstractions and emotions.

Think about songwriting. What is a song, really? It’s a personal expression, right? Even when you aren’t talking about yourself, technically you are, because you’re expressing an idea, thought, or opinion. So, abstraction and emotions can help the songwriting process. Especially since listeners relate to human emotions.

But when it comes to something more exact like business or marketing, you can’t just rely on gut feelings or fly by the seat of your pants. You’ve got to be able to track your activity, look at the facts, and make hard decisions to pursue that which works and makes sense to do.

That’s the responsibility that some artists have a hard time accepting. They either don’t want to do it, or they just want someone else to do it.

And I’m not going to say that getting someone else to do it isn’t an option. But you’ve still got to act on the data, right? Or else it makes no sense to collect. We can stubbornly insist on things we think we should be doing, or we can use cold, hard facts to make better decisions on the activity we should be engaged in.

If you want to create something because you want it to exist, that’s fine, but recognize it might not be the fast track to getting what you want in your music career.

And I get that this is a scary thing. You’re trying to blaze a trail and make your way all on your own. You’re trying to make things work in your music career.

But turning a blind eye and following emotion or opinion is the least attractive option.

You’ve either got to start tracking relevant data yourself, get someone to track for you, or some combination thereof. Otherwise, you’re unlikely to grow your music career into a sustainable, profitable one. You’re just going to be ruled by your opinions and emotions, as most artists are, and end up in the same desperate bucket they are.

The most successful artists do things differently. That’s why they’re successful.

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.