There’s a fierce rule that I live by that keeps me safe in the music business – it’s simple: Never meet your idols.

I still stand by that … except today I’m changing this to:
Never meet your idols…unless your idol is Seth Godin.

I feel more inspired, calm and clear than I have in a long time.

I was once called the “last enthusiastic person in the music business.” and I prided myself in that.

But lately I’ve been feeling jaded and not quite so enthusiastic.

I think that had something to do with:

1. Being empathic and sometimes feeling like an open receptacle to angry indie artists confronted by the amount of work ahead of them.

2. Reading one too many negative posts about the business and how we are all supposed to feel happy with less in the new model.

3. Traveling the world and hearing the collective gasp as artists scratch their heads and ask – how do we make money doing this??

Turns out Seth Godin has answers….

I’m going to change back into that enthusiastic girl today…

Thanks Seth.

Watch Part 1 of the interview:

Read the Highlights on my Blog:

Seth kicked off by letting us know that there is nothing wrong with being “weird.”

The Internet

1. Lets weird people find other weird people, which amplifies their weirdness.

2. Lets marketers reach groups of people who aren’t the normal ones (reaching the masses is too expensive)

What this means if you are an artist is: You better make something for weird people.

You can NEVER rationalize your way out of fear. Fear of something else helps you get rid of first fear.

• You should be more afraid of being obscure
• You should be more afraid of being ignored
• You should be more afraid of no one ever hearing you
• Than you should be of disappointing a few people.

The haters are going to hate. There are people out there with an open heart who can not wait to hear from you. You don’t need to spend any time with the haters.

You can not be a musician, and you can not be an artist until you acknowledge one of the things you are trying to do is make a dent in the universe that you are trying to touch people… Marketing is finding out the best way to touch people and to touch them in a way that resonates well enough that they tell their friends.

I think you should look at the new marketing as a chance to be you.

Someone needs to tell the story. If it’s not you than what are we paying you for?

A musician in 1970, 80 or 90 was looking for a job and that job was to fill a slot in the store… so the record label would hire musicians to make the song of the week or the month and if it sold, they got to do it again. That “slot filling” activity is what created our vision of what a rockstar does. Now, there are no slots left because there us no retail left.

So, there’s more opportunity than ever before but the music industry is dead so what you actually do for a living now has nothing to do with what Neil Diamond did.

What you do for a living is: You lead a group of fans who want you to take them somewhere and hang out with other fans. Just like the Grateful Dead did. The Dead said: our music is free and if you want to hang out with other people who like our music than that costs $30.

Keller Williams put all of his music up for free – his job is not to “fill a slot” but to lead a group and to connect them.

If you are not prepared to do that than I think you should not try to make money as a musician.

The only other alternative is put your music out for free and go to your day job.

The guy who invented the ship also invented the shipwreck. YOU can’t say I want to be an artist but I’m never willing to fail.

If you want to be great you have to be prepared to fail. If you want to be mediocre you can be consistently mediocre and never fail – those are the 2 choices.

The price of being great is you have to be prepared to fail.

to be booed offstage. If you are not then you are not going near the edge, if you don’t go near the edge then you’re boring, and if you are boring than we are not going to talk about you….

 

Looking for advice about social media for musicians? Check out Cyber PR’s free course, Social Media House! Click the picture below to get started.