Daydream Believers Podcast

This episode took a slightly different format than others in the past: I caught up with my good buddy Ron Kempton – an extraordinary human being, and an exceptionally gifted songwriter and poet.

We chatted about how his career got started, how he fell in love with music, what his past students are up to now, how he came to start writing, who inspired him to write and learn guitar, what his biggest influences were and are, his feelings about Daydream Believers – and what it takes to be a true artist.

It’s a really insightful heart-to-heart that contains a tonne of golden nuggets and insights from a true artist on what it takes to be a true artist.

If you’d like to delve into Ron’s world, stop by his website

And be sure to check out his beautiful music:

You’re Not Listening

Hearts In Memphis

The book Ron mentioned is: The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules Our Lives by Leonard Mlodinow

These podcasts exist to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation needed to pursue your dreams. If you’d like to join the Daydream Believers online coaching community and have free access to strategic coaching methods, inspiration and support, head here.

Thanks so much for visiting – really looking forward to welcoming you to the family!

On this episode, we’re joined by Greg Wilnau, founder of Musician Monster: a website which exists to remind musicians of the truth that musicians have it within themselves to become prosperous. Together with his wife, Greg also runs Wilnau Design: a web design company whose focus is designing beautiful websites that will grow your business. I was really taken aback by his sheer awesomeness when we had our very first chat back in the early spring. He’s an exceptional human being with a powerful mindset, who intentionally wants to help people. We chatted about creative ways people can make money from their art, how to overcome obstacles to achieve the life of your dreams – and how to set up a website that reflects your life’s purpose. We also talked heavily about the importance of our mindset.

During our conversation, we answered questions submitted by members of my coaching community, Daydream Believers:

1. I’m working really hard at licensing my music. I feel like sending music off to publishers is a vague way to get this done. Are there ways to get to know producers and publishers in such a way that would mean they really take an interest?

2. How do you deal with a major setback that can cause you to question everything that you are doing in a negative way? I had a huge set back in college and am finding that I have become entirely demotivated in pursuing it and rededicating myself.

3. Personal branding is a subject I feel I need to embrace along with a supporting website but feel intimidated by as I don’t know how to present myself and also don’t feel confident to make decisions on visual things like fonts/graphics/logos. So any getting started tips for that would be greatly appreciated. Plus while I have various social media accounts for my WeAreWeTogether name I’m not sure if just using my actual name would not be better for a promo site for my writing.

The branding PDF Greg referred to can be found here:“Three Ways To Brand Your Music You’ve Probably Never Heard Of”

The how to make money PDF can be found here

The book Greg recommended (and so do I!) is The Seven Habits Of Highly Effective People by Stephen R. Covey.

These podcasts exist to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation needed to pursue your dreams. If you’d like to join the Daydream Believers online coaching community, have your say on what topics get covered during our podcasts – and have your questions answered by our expert guests, simply become a patron. You can sign up quickly and easily via the Patreon website here, or via their handy Patreon mobile app. You’ll also get access to the full range of my coaching packages and music production lessons. Plus you’ll get exclusive early access to all my musical output – and lots of lovely treats in between.

Thanks so much for visiting – really looking forward to welcoming you to the family!

Awesome Angela Mastrogiacomo, founder of Muddy Paw PR, answers questions from members of my Daydream Believers coaching community about all things PR! Muddy Paw is a tireless, thriving, spirited force with a desire to promote the people and companies they believe in. Not only that, but they aim to constantly challenge the status quo in an effort to change not just the careers of those they work with, but the industry as a whole.

* What made you decide to get into public relations and how did you form the relationships necessary to realise your vision?

* What’s the best way to build a relationship with PR people and how should I approach my first contact with them?

* How can a PR campaign improve reach for a startup artist?

* Is it better for an artist to be focused on a single platform or to be available everywhere to meet as many listeners as possible?

* Does the number of plays a track has influence its impact on a streaming media platform and how best should we balance this requirement against reaching more listeners/fans?

* In the absence of a PR budget, what can a creator, acting as his or her own PR agent, do to spread the word about their projects beyond their email list and social media contacts?

* I struggle to maintain a FB page, twitter page, Instagram account, etc. What’s the best way to maximize building a following with limited time and resources?

* How can I be more attractive to PR agents to get represented? I also struggle to manage social media entirely by myself, and would appreciate any advice on how to grow my network on Twitter in particular.

* How do I reach the people with big money – and how to get them to invest in you?

Show notes:

The article Angela mentioned about branding can be found on Soundfly. It is entitled: Don’t Be Boring: A Musician’s Guide To Branding.

Simon Sinek’s TED talk is called Start With Why.

For social media:

Hootsuite or Tweet Deck for scheduling Twitter posts

Planoly or Hootsuite for scheduling Instagram posts

Shadow Of Whales is the independent band that are building their profile really successfully.

These podcasts exist to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation needed to pursue your dreams.

If you’d like to join the Daydream Believers online coaching community, have your say on what topics get covered during our podcasts – and have your questions answered by our expert guests, simply become a patron here.  You can sign up quickly and easily and you’ll also get access to the full range of my coaching packages. Plus you’ll get exclusive early access to all my musical output – and lots of lovely treats in between!

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

Really looking forward to welcoming you to the family!

This month, the amazingly inspiring Rob Lawrence took some time out to chat with me about his tips and tricks for staying motivated and inspired.

Rob is an audio producer, author, podcaster and a phenomenal coach who helps creative entrepreneurs embrace the power of sound to broadcast messages worth listening to. In short, he’s awesome. He hosts a gorgeous podcast called Inspirational Creatives which is a fountain of…inspiration!

This is Rob’s podcast. If you haven’t already subscribed to it, do so!

During this episode, Rob and I answered the questions submitted by members of my coaching community, Daydream Believers:

* How can I focus on projects whilst also concentrating on other things? I am a one main project kind of person but when I don’t have a main project, I try and do a couple but don’t achieve anything.

* What techniques can Rob suggest for compartmentalising – keeping focused on creative goals alongside daily pressures?

* If inspiration strikes in different ways at different times, how can I give a coherent structure to a body of work? So how to fit creative vision around inspiration if outside of that point of focus?

The website on heat mapping that Rob mentioned was Productiveflourishing.com

The book is: The One Thing by Gary Keller

These podcasts exist to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation needed to pursue your dreams.

If you’d like to join the Daydream Believers online coaching community, have your say on what topics get covered during our podcasts – and have your questions answered by our expert guests, simply become a patron here.  You can sign up quickly and easily and you’ll also get access to the full range of my coaching packages. Plus you’ll get exclusive early access to all my musical output – and lots of lovely treats in between!

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

Really looking forward to welcoming you to the family!

This month inside the Daydream Believers community the wise and wonderful D Grant Smith took the time out of his busy schedule to sit down with me and chat about how to overcome fears and challenges.

It was an amazing exchange, during which we addressed the questions submitted by members of the community.

We hope you find it helpful, and if you’d like to connect more with D, you can find him here. Get in touch with him – he’s a beautiful and big-hearted soul who is waiting to help you step into your greatness.

These podcasts exist to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation needed to pursue your dreams.

If you’d like to join the Daydream Believers online coaching community, have your say on what topics get covered during our podcasts – and have your questions answered by our expert guests, simply become a patron here.  You can sign up quickly and easily and you’ll also get access to the full range of my coaching packages. Plus you’ll get exclusive early access to all my musical output – and lots of lovely treats in between!

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

Really looking forward to welcoming you to the family!

This month, the Daydream Believers were super privileged to have the awesome Steve Palfreyman come in and host a workshop for us. He took the time out to answer some pertinent questions the Dreamers had about marketing and rebranding:

* What are the initial components needed when setting up a brand/rebranding?

* Is there a set of key points needed to put in place for clear branding?

* How do I develop a brand for myself that encompasses all the different creative things I do?

* Should I concern myself with marketing, would there be an advantage beyond my web page to marketing and rebranding?

* How do I market with an extremely limited budget?

* How do you establish a brand and fanbase if you are a non-gigging musician? How best can I showcase my work?

* What are the different avenues I can explore to market my feature-length horror film?

* It seems there are tradeoffs to promoting your videos on facebook vs youtube. What is the best way to gain and leverage visibility?

Steve helps creative people thrive. He has a knack for turning ideas into strategies and simplifying the actions we take daily to grow our creative projects. He wants to leave one thing in the minds of others: that we can all make our mark on the world in ways that are good for humanity.

Connect with this incredibly inspirational human being:

https://stevepalfreyman.com/

Twitter: @StevePalfreyman

Thank you so much for stopping by – I hope you find this post useful to answer your marketing and rebranding needs!

These podcasts exist to provide you with the knowledge, inspiration and motivation needed to pursue your dreams.

If you’d like to join the Daydream Believers online coaching community, have your say on what topics get covered during our podcasts – and have your questions answered by our expert guests, simply become a patron here.  You can sign up quickly and easily and you’ll also get access to the full range of my coaching packages. Plus you’ll get exclusive early access to all my musical output – and lots of lovely treats in between!

You can subscribe to the podcast on iTunes or Stitcher.

Really looking forward to welcoming you to the family!

Ash is an amazing personal trainer, dancer/movement artist, and advocate for gender equality.

She explores the world and the terrain of her life with movement, and aims to assist others in creating balanced, healthy and creatively fulfilled lives.

Connect with her at: @ash_moonpt @ashmooon

To book a session with her, email her directly at: [email protected]

Hello my beautiful daydreamers! How are you all doing on this lovely day?

I am in Devon, I’m in my mums lovely conservatory/living room space. You can probably see a bit of sunshine coming in behind me from the garden, although it was raining about 5 seconds ago, it’s been going crazy here! We’ve even got snow in the garden still – everything!

So, I’m here to give you my top tips for living a balanced healthy life, which hopefully will enable you to be more creative and productive as well. I know that when my body feels good, my brain feels good, and I feel more creative and productive in the rest of my life.

I’m going to give you my top tips, 5 of them first, and then go on to your questions. I am going to try and keep it simple, because otherwise I might go off on a schpeel!

So, number 1: Start strong. Start your day strong, start the way you wake up strong. My way is to get up and have a cup of hot water as the first thing to cleanse and wake up my body. I have lemon water and also Himalayan rock salt, and sometimes cranberry tincture, to get the urinary tract going.

The lemon cleanses your body, putting it in to an alkaline state, and the hot water helps to wake up your digestion system. The whole thing together helps your metabolism wake up and burn your energy more effectively throughout the day.

I also find that this gives me a moment to sit and listen to my body, and see where I’m at, see how I’m feeling. Even if it’s 3 minutes in the morning, it gives me a nice base to bounce off.

Number 2: Get moving and shaking! Whatever your style of movement might be, whether it is dance, whether it’s yoga, rock climbing, going to the gym. Whether it’s classes, whether it’s more cardio based, whatever it is that you choose to do…get doing it!

I know that’s easier said than done. I recommend that you try and move for 20-30 minutes a day, every day. You don’t need to be totally killing it in those 20-30 mins, but every day regularly.

Or 3x per week minimum for an hour, and for that hour I would love for you to be really feeling it. Embrace your sweat! We love getting sweaty! Some of the best things in life involve getting sweaty!

So, number 3: eat 3 meals. I don’t want to hear any of that “I’m not a breakfast person” type of business. Again, I know this is easier said than done, everyone has their own habits, but if you can, try and get your 3 meals in a day. And this is going to really help your body regulate its energy.

Having your breakfast is going to set you up for the day, a bit like the lemon water, it wakes you up, gets your metabolism going and gives you energy to start the day (strong!)

Try to have your 3 meals because this lets your body know that it’s going to to get a frequent and regular source of energy coming in, it doesn’t need to panic and store excess energy as fat to use later. When you skip meals your body goes in to panic and it will start storing energy from previous meals, like a 2nd battery, because it knows that it’s going to get starved later, and it will need to have some energy there to keep it (you) ticking over.

So just let your body know that you’re going to feed it. It’s going to get its breakfast, and can do it’s stuff, and then it’s going to get it’s lunch and it’s dinner. It knows it’s got a regular fuel source coming in. Obviously healthy choices is what we want!

Number 4: Cultivate healthy habits, which is kind of everything I’ve just said really- a successful life comes from successful, healthy, habits.

From what I have learned, and in my opinion, networking falls into two categories:

*

The networking you do in order to increase your audience

*

The networking you do in order to link with industry professionals

To me, they are inextricably linked – they are both important – and both need to be approached with the same level of care and attention.

We all know networking is important – the big question a lot of us face is: HOW do we network? I like to treat networking as I do making new friends: I invite people into a conversation by asking them a question. I take an interest in them first. Networking is all about building relationships.

How you do this is very much up to you, but one thing holds true no matter what approach you adopt: people will not give you something unless you first show an interest in them. Asking for support simply does not crack it – unless you have already established strong bonds with those people. Learning how to network from a place of really wanting to connect with people, rather than from a place of neediness will totally transform your results.

Successful networking – or networking etiquette is quite simply about being a nice person and not spamming. Treat people the way that you would like to be treated yourself. Do you enjoy receiving long messages from strangers, demanding that you ‘check out their amazing work’? Neither do I.

Keeping in regular contact with your audience by way of newsletters is the perfect way to nourish your relationships once you have made the connection. Personally, I send out newsletters twice a month. To me this feels enough to stay pleasantly present, without having a spammy presence.

Send newsletters out by way of a mailing list service provider such as Mailer Lite or Mail Chimp. Never send out newsletters without a mailing list service provider – Google will flag your email address as a spammer.

Right now, I live in the middle of nowhere, so getting to any sort of networking event is pretty much impossible, but that’s ok because with the internet, the world is literally my oyster.

I love using Twitter to grow my audience and form new connections with people who I think would be interested in my output. I treat it as I would a real-life conversation. I start by introducing yourself: “Hello! Thank you so much for following me, I’m Liz, an electronic music artist, creative coach and lover of connections. I’ve formed a lot of beautiful friendships through music. May I initiate a potential friendship with you by asking what’s your favourite music to listen to?”

A conversation then often follows during which a connection is made and interest is piqued. Once I feel it is appropriate, I then tell the person that I’d love to send them a link to download some tracks for free. And I ask if they’d be interested. If they say yes, I thank them and ask which email address I can send it to. Thank people – always, always thank people – whether it’s for their time or their email addresses.

You might be asking how you get people to follow you in the first place. Good question! The answer is simple: find popular and active people out there, with a similar output to you – and follow their followers. I follow the followers of music artists who have a similar sound to me and who are popular and active on Twitter. When people follow you back, send them a message and initiate a conversation!

When someone follows you back, pop to their profile and if you see something that resonates with you, retweet it. You’re showing an interest in them and what they have to say – and that does good things for building the foundations of the relationship you are wishing to establish with this person.

Subscribe to newsletters and updates that are in line with your message and interest – and use these as material to curate interest...

Since a new year is upon us and it’s generally a time when people make a fresh start, I thought it would be interesting to bring up a concept introduced to me a few months back by my music production mentor, Gary Gray – and it is this: if you want to change your thoughts, first change your behaviour.

If any of you are like me, you’ve probably invested a lot of your time and energy into affirmations. To a certain point, they help: I see them as a sort of primer…they prepare the ground so that when you plant your seeds, your are sowing them on soil that is more fertile. But I do not believe that affirmations can do much more than that. Why?

Because to me, the concept of affirmations is a half-baked one. It misses one vital factor – and that is: it’s down to you to do the work – to plant your proverbial seeds. You’re not going to manifest the life of your dreams by brainwashing yourself into believing you already have it. You also have to change your behaviour.

A change of thought must be accompanied by a change of behaviour. If you want to change the way you think, then change your behaviour. Your thoughts will soon change – as will your life.

It’s no use walking around affirming to yourself a thousand times a day that you are a successful and fulfilled creative when in reality you are spending little to no time on your creative passions. If, however, you change your behaviour to accompany your affirmation, your thoughts will soon start to tow the line, and you soon will be a successful and fulfilled creative. If you want to think generous thoughts, start behaving in a generous manner. You’ll be amazed at how your mindset (and your life) changes.

Think about it this way: thoughts are inanimate, they do not exist in the material realm until you turn them into actions. What leads to actions? The nature of your behaviour. Experts estimate we have between 50,000 to 80,000 thoughts per day. My head is spinning just at the thought of that! The ephemeral, yet relentless flow of thoughts means that without an anchor, a thought pattern is incredibly hard to change. One very effective anchor is your behaviour.

I’ll use a personal example: one of my most relentless and consistent thought patterns was the fear of financial lack. In the past, it was also what held me back from pursuing my dreams. I’ve tried all sorts of methods to help free me from the stifling grasp of this recurring thought pattern, but none really worked in the long term.

As most of you know, last September I had the opportunity to take a trip to California to meet my music production mentor in person and study with him directly. In theory, I could not afford to take the trip. My thoughts started spinning and I found myself in that all-too-familiar and limiting loop: “I can’t afford it, I can’t afford it”.

But something bigger than that thought pushed me to take the trip – label it as you wish: spirit, my higher self, intuition. Whatever it was, it convinced me. I took the trip. Sitting here recalling it, I have tears in my eyes – because it was one of the most blessed trips I’ve ever taken.

Me taking that trip did a lot of things, but most importantly, it ingrained into my soul one vital message: that I always have what I need – and so much more. Me changing my behaviour and choosing to take that trip has finally resulted in me being free from one of my most limiting thoughts. In short, my behaviour changed my thoughts.

The truth is, I’ve always had what I needed (more than what I needed), but my behaviour seldom reflected this. As a result, the limiting thought that I didn’t have enough money maintained it’s suffocating grip on me.

This lead me to feel frustrated – and angry at myself, but round and round in this seemingly inescapable cycle I went: having big dreams,