What NOT to Do With an Opportunity

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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.