What NOT to Do With an Opportunity - Progressions: Success in the Music Industry

Episode 114

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Published on:

9th May 2024

What NOT to Do With an Opportunity

Travis reflects on the latest episode’s success on YouTube and how overweighting the follow up to a big win can prevent you from building on that momentum.

In this episode, you'll learn about:

  • Why we put so much weight on our next move after a big success or failure
  • How overweighting opportunities have been setbacks for his mix career
  • How “Quantity” plays into your career growth
  • When to transition into the “Quality” phase of your career.

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Credits:

Guest: N/A

Host: Travis Ference

Editor: Travis Ference

Theme Music: inter.ference

Transcript
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Hey, welcome to progression success in the music industry. You know, when you hear that

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these days that we're going unscripted, I thought that might be

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fun. I've enjoyed the unscripted stuff that I've been doing

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lately on the audio podcast, and, you

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know, thinking about the YouTube and how the production value

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there keeps going up and how those videos become

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solo podcast episodes, I feel like maybe there's space to

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just be really. I don't want to say honest and truthful, because I am

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honest and truthful, but, you know, unscripted and off the cuff. In the spirit

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of that, I am having a cocktail right now. It's an old

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fashioned. I'm kind of a weirdo. I mean, any engineer

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you would imagine might be compelled to

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weigh their cocktails. And so that's what I do. I use a. I use

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a dry scale. Uh, but 1.8oz of

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bourbon or rye, 0.3oz of maraschino cherry

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liqueur. That's my sweetener. Instead of a simple syrup, I

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do two dashes of regular bitters and two dashes of orange bitters. And I use

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a lemon peel, not an orange peel. So, now you know what's

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going on with my evening, but let's talk about what's going

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on with the podcast. So, this week, or I guess it's last week at this

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point, mastering is dead. I mean, it's obviously not dead. If you listen to the

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episode, then you know that it was very pro mastering. Uh, it was just

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packaged in a YouTube style, and that video

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did really well. I'm actually. I'm really excited

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about how well it did. Uh, it's really grown

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the progressions YouTube a lot, which is another reason that I think you. You know,

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I want the audio podcast to retain some of the audio podcast character.

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I don't want to script everything on here. But while thinking about how to

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follow that video up, well, a. I felt the

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pressure, right? It has 11,000 views. I've gotten, like,

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almost 500 subscribers from it. And when.

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When you get a big win, I mean, that's not a huge win, but you

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get a win like that, you really second guess how you want to follow that

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up. Do I do an interview? Do I do another solo video?

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How much time do I have this week? And I just. I decided

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I'm not comfortable just pushing something out to YouTube this

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week that would also obviously be an audio podcast

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that, you know, just fits into the amount of time that I have this week,

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which is not. Not a lot. So I thought, let's talk

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about following up on a big win or a

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big loss, because I think that's really what separates

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people from being super successful. And

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not if you're the type of person that is not afraid to

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just keep moving forward after a success

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or not afraid to keep moving forward after a failure.

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I think you're going to find yourself really way out in front of

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the pack. It doesn't sound difficult, but if you've

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maybe written a song that has done well

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or worked on a record that's done well, or put a

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YouTube video out that's done well, when you go to do that same

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thing next time, you remember that

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you did so well last time. And it's kind of, you know, it reminds me

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of golfing. I used to golf when I had time every weekend

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or every other weekend, and you're always doing battle with yourself.

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You're always comparing your current score with your

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score. Last time, my scores were horrible, but

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whenever I had a good one, if I went out and actually played

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respectable golf, still bad the following week, I would. It

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would be like a 120. I'd be like, I'd want to, like, walk off the

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course because there's all that pressure to follow that up. And I definitely

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think that that obviously applies to any

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creative or business endeavor. And I think mastering, not

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having that fear of follow up, which is almost like

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it's as much a fear of failure as it is a fear

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of success, because obviously, you don't want

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to have a failure after a big win, but then you

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also have this momentum, and if you get another big

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win, are you going to, like, propel yourself further ahead than you

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never expected and not realize what the next step is? And it

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sounds weird to say fear of success, but

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I do believe that there are people that hold themselves back

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because they're afraid of the change. Think of how many artists

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that you might know that have had massive success

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out of nowhere and then not followed it up

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or waited forever to follow it up because there's a lot of weight there.

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I think a good example is I think that my

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worst mixes are the ones that I am

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most concerned about following through on because they're an amazing

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opportunity. I will overthink those mixes,

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almost run them into the ground. In fact, I can think of two mixes where

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they didn't use my mix because I probably didn't trust

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my gut and trust my instinct, and I over thought it because it was

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a bigger artist than I normally work with. It was a good opportunity. It was

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a big producer, whatever it is I put too much weight on

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that opportunity. And I think that's really what it is, is

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when you're following up a win, a lot of us put too much weight

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on that opportunity, and so it can be really easy to let

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yourself down. That's what people are afraid of. They don't want to

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come from that. That high and then transition into being let

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down. And, you know, this is coming from the guy that is not doing

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a YouTube video this week. Instead, I'm going rambling unscripted

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with a cocktail on my podcast. But

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I don't think that it's because I'm afraid of failure

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or afraid of success. I believe that it's because I

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don't have the bandwidth this week to

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approach this opportunity with the right strategy. And I

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think that is the angle that you

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should be taking. If you put a song out and it's doing really well,

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take a moment to think about why is this song doing really

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well? What part of what I did

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worked? Was it your marketing? Was it outreach

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to people? Was it organic? Was it just that? It was a great song

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and it worked. Look at that and think about that before you roll

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your next song out. Because if there's something that you can take away and apply

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it to the strategy for your next one, then you're going to set yourself up

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for. For potentially compounding that opportunity.

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So to kind of step away from that angle for a

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moment, I think there is also something else that comes into play here

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where the state of the world and the short

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attention span ness of culture these days, I think

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encourages you to follow up any

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opportunity or missed opportunity with

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quantity. This is a horrible example for musicians, but let's just say you want

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to be like a influencer, right? Where you put a video out on

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TikTok and it doesn't get any plays. So you put another one out. You put

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another one out, you put another one out, you immediately want to follow it with

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more, more, and you're not worried about whether it's better or

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worse. Maybe you are, but you're just pushing forward with more

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quantity. Or in the complete opposite situation, you

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put a video out and it blows up and it goes viral and you do

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the same thing. You just do more and more, more, more, more, more. And I

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think that that's helpful. When you're starting out at something like, if you're

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just starting to release music or you're just starting to mix records, the

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reps are huge. You need the reps. You need to put

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out more, write more songs, release more songs and you get

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comfortable in that whole process. But I

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think eventually, whether you are as successful as you'd

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like to be or not, quality has to come into play.

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And I think that's where a lot of people might go wrong. And

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now I am. I am truly off script with no bullet points. So

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hopefully, when this is over, it still makes sense. But I think if you

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are on the quantity road and you're putting the reps in and you're

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reaching a level of success and you don't transition

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into quality, then you're missing an

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opportunity. Because if you've done the work, you've put the reps

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out, you've released the music, you've written the songs, you've mixed, what, whatever it

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is, once you've put the reps in and you're actually good at that thing,

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if you continue with the quantity mindset, I think that you're going to

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plateau yourself and that you're going to be at a ceiling. And I

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guess the ultimate would be to have quantity and quality. But in order to do

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that, I think you need to do the quantity game until you're good at it,

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then do the quality game, figure out how to do the best thing that you

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can do and then put them together. Now that I say it out loud, that

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is the end goal. And that is how you get there. Even if you're not

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making music or making content or whatever it is, even if you're just engineering or

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just mixing or just mastering, that's what your idols did. They did a lot of

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work until they built their skillset. Then they really honed

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and mastered their skill, and now they're able

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to do a large quantity of great work. Yeah. So I think

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that's where we're going to leave this one, I guess, to do a quick summary.

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The takeaways here are to really believe in

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your follow up. Whether it's from a win or from

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a loss, that next opportunity that comes,

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remember that you are going to overweight that opportunity

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and don't let that prevent you from putting your best foot forward.

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I guess to tie the second half to the first half of this little

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rant, it's important to know where you are in your

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career. Know whether you're in the reps skill

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building phase, or if you're in the focus on quality

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phase, or if you're transitioning into that combo

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of the two that hopefully you'll spend the back half of your

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career in. And I think if you're aware of where you are in your

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journey and you can tie that to your wins

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and losses and use that to trigger some confidence in your follow

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up. I think you're going to be in a great place so I hope this

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one was helpful. I appreciate all my longtime

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audio listeners and let me know whether these unscripted things

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are working for you. I'm enjoying them. I'm getting better out of my

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hope. And also remember there's a new website progressionspodcast.com

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dot. You can leave me a voicemail. At least one of you

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please go to that website and leave me a voicemail and just tell me whether

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I should do more of these, whether this was helpful. And yeah,

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I look forward to hearing that person's voice or two or three or four

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of you. So I'll see you all next week. Don't forget to subscribe to the

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YouTube, sign up for the newsletter and I appreciate each

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and every one of you for sharing the show and telling people about it.

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About the Podcast

Progressions: Success in the Music Industry
Host Travis Ference chats with music producers, engineers, mixers, artists, musicians, and songwriters about the tips, tricks, mindsets, and ideas that helped them define their careers.
Conversations exploring creativity, productivity, and career growth in the music industry. Join in each week as Travis sits down with some of the industry’s best and brightest to discuss the mindsets and strategies that they use in their careers every day.
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About your host

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Travis Ference

Travis Ference is a Grammy nominated mixer, producer, and recording engineer based out of Los Angeles, CA. With over a decade of experience in the music business he has worked on multiple #1 albums, several top 10's, numerous RIAA platinum and gold certified records, as well as hit TV shows and blockbuster films. His work can be heard on more than 15 million albums sold and billions streams worldwide.

The inspiration for his podcast came from his journey over the last 5 years to redefine what success is for him, to take control of his time, and to ultimately live the life he wants while making the records he loves.