The David Andrew Wiebe Show

Letting go can be difficult. But change is sometimes necessary. How do you navigate these changes, especially uncomfortable ones? How can you cultivate a mindset that supports you through the upheaval?

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David reveals his reasons for embracing a personal brand.

Sponsors:

Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.”

Highlights:

00:17 – Catching you up with the recent consolidation

00:38 – It’s time to stop hiding

01:39 – It’s time for a simplified web presence

03:22 – It’s time for increased focus

03:40 – It’s time to give up the good for great

04:31 – It’s time to move forward

05:42 – It’s time for improved results

Transcript:

So, it’s probably about time I addressed the elephant in the room.

I have been quite occupied with completing contracts, planning for Clean Slate, finishing my latest book and music release, and even a series of comedic videos in the last month and a half.

Now that I’ve got a bit of room to breathe, let me catch you up with why I deleted Music Entrepreneur HQ.

Time to Stop Hiding

For one reason or another, I haven’t had to promote my products or services in the last few years. Cushy contracts, referrals from band leaders, supportive collaborators… there were generous, proactive people in my corner, and there was always more than enough to keep me busy.

Things look different now that I’ve decided to move on and embrace my ideas more. It’s not like I’m completely on my own. I have some contracts or contracts in the works, and I still have collaborators, though some have also moved on to other endeavors. Of course, I have a small team that I think the world of too.

But it’s time to stop hiding behind a brand and position myself at the front of the stage, even if it’s a little scary. It’s time to let people in on my world. Not just who I am as an artist coach or as a musician, which you’ve already had the opportunity to see.

I want to let you in on all my passions. I want to be more vulnerable and transparent in my sharing, and that’s something I imagine you’ve already picked up from the Creativity Excitement Emotion podcast so far.

A Simplified Web Presence

My friend, singer-songwriter Jonathan Ferguson once said, “I don’t know anyone with more Facebook pages than David Andrew Wiebe.”

Yes, it was getting out of hand.

There was a time when niche and micro-niche sites were in vogue, and I’m sure, to a degree, they still work. I was probably at the height of my obsession with niche sites in 2014.

But I didn’t want to make you work so hard for the information you’re looking for anymore. Music Entrepreneur HQ. Content Marketing Musician. David Andrew Wiebe. I wanted to create a central location where you could get everything, and there is a little more work to do, but most of what you’re looking for can now be found at DavidAndrewWiebe.com.

So, this is your reintroduction to David Andrew Wiebe, and this is what I’d like to share about myself:

I’m a digital marketer and new media expert. I build websites, design graphics, write copy, develop content, and more.

I’m an award-winning composer and musician. No changes here, just that you can expect more releases from me moving forward.

I’m a best-selling author and writer. Besides books and content, I also help people with lyric writing, whitepapers, business plans, grant writing, ghostwriting, and self-publishing.

I’m a professional podcaster. You will probably start to hear more advertising in future episodes, though I’m always keen to self-sponsor episodes too.

My passion is helping independent artists, creatives, creators, and entrepreneurs. Music isn’t the only thing I cover – I also get into community building, personal development, spirituality, leadership, entrepreneurship, and digital marketing. If you haven’t had the chance to explore DavidAndrewWiebe.com yet, now may be the time you’ve been waiting for.

Less Work

Having fewer sites to maintain means more focus on one area. I get to make faster progress with my projects, and I get to have more control over my workload.

Having fewer sites to maintain means more focus on one area.Share on X

Most importantly, I can focus more on the coaching, the work I do with you, and helping you get the results you’re looking for in your career.

Giving Up the Good for Great

Things don’t always work out the way you hope they will. No one goes into a new project thinking, “I sure hope this will be a greater failure than the last.”

Yet, when push comes to shove, numbers don’t lie. They tell a story. It might not be a story you want to hear, but there’s always a cost to sticking our heads in the sand and pretending something is working when it isn’t.

Numbers tell a story.Share on X

That cost can be our income, our well-being, our affinity with others, and more.

Remaining loyal to a person, community, or project to the point of sacrifice and misery is a fault I can admit to. But I’m taking steps to heal this part of my journey, so I can find the intersection of fulfillment, satisfaction, and lucre I desire.

Music Entrepreneur HQ was good. It showed much promise early on. But even with increasing effort, it never turned into something great. I’m ready to give up the good for great.

Going Backwards Rather Than Forwards

When you have as much content as I do, you recognize the importance of content audits – updating outdated articles, consolidating pieces that are talking about similar topics, and deleting what is no longer relevant to the business at hand.

And I have found this to be a very time- and energy-intensive process. Yes, it is necessary, and we have come to a time in building online businesses where it’s important to look at how we can do more with less.

But what I’ve found is that instead of freeing yourself to focus on the present and what’s ahead, you end up mucking about in the past – a past that you may not enjoy remembering or revisiting.

Unfortunately, trying to create episode 300 of The New Music Industry Podcast felt like the same insanity twirl-wash cycle. It involved looking back on years of podcast episodes, identifying what was great about them, and talking about things that happened a long time ago.

I didn’t get it done because I wanted to move forward. I wanted to work on things I was excited about working on. I didn’t want to spend ages dusting off my past.

I’m not saying it won’t get done. But as Clean Slate Victoria was approaching, it was important for me to focus on that instead.

Improved Results

Yes, I wanted improved results in my business, and I have seen some positive changes since making the shift to a personal brand already.

But I’m not just talking about improved results for me. I’m talking about improved results for you.

Look at the new podcast and how we’ve been able to deliver more content faster. Look at the Clean Slate event we just had in Victoria and how it brought the community together. Look at the Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook, which is now officially available as a Kindle, paperback, and hardcover. Not to mention my new musical release, the Makeshift Romance EP.

All this is possible because of the efforts I’ve put into streamlining and team building. I know that what we’ve created isn’t for everyone, but as we keep panning, we’ll find the gold.

And whether you’ve been with me since the beginning, or you’ve been with me for a couple of episodes, you have no idea how thankful I am for you.

Welcome to Creativity Excitement Emotion, where I’m documenting my journeys – successes, failures, and everything in between.

I hope you’ll stick with us. I have no idea whether this gambit will pay off. Maybe we’ll think better and go back to Music Entrepreneur HQ. We’ll see. In the meantime, I’m excited about creating more great resources for you.

Thanks so much for listening. If you enjoyed this, I want to invite you to like, follow, subscribe, and leave a comment. I want to connect with you and I’m excited to see what we can create together. Until next time.

Sometimes we know deep down when we need to leave something behind – a project, a circumstance, a person, whatever it may be. So, why do we tend to hold on to things that are no longer serving us?

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why he hesitated to pull the plug on Music Entrepreneur HQ, and why he felt like he should have done it sooner.

Sponsors:

Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.”

Highlights:

00:17 – Addressing the elephant in the room

00:41 – The embarrassment of public failures

02:53 – Rebranding can be risky

04:01 – How much work is involved in moving to a new platform?

05:00 – Knowing when to pull the plug

Transcript:

So if you've been listening to me to this point, there's a pretty good chance you already know about Music Entrepreneur HQ and some of the decisions that I had to make around it. And looking back, I think I would have pulled the plug on it much sooner, but there are obviously reasons why I didn't. And I think that's what we're going to be looking at in this particular episode.

And the first reason is because of, I think, the same thing that we all deal with. Sometimes a very public failure. Did I want music entrepreneur HQ to be documented as something or known as something that had failed, something that I created and poured my blood, sweat and tears into that just didn't quite find the footing that I was looking for.

Don't get me wrong. I think it's all relative. It had traffic, it converted a certain number of sales, it attracted readers and sometimes converted them into subscribers or even buyers. Which is incredible. And that's what we were looking to create with Music Entrepreneur HQ. It just never quite happened at the scale that we were looking to have it happen at.

Either because we had trouble growing it beyond a certain point, or because of just adverse circumstances. Although, like, I'm not too quick to blame circumstances, uh, I would say that there was botnet attacks. And so there were things that I did not know that happened in the background. And if we had staff or if we had experts and people that knew how to handle that kind of thing, I suppose, you know, that kind of thing could have been dealt with.

And now that I know that that's something that needs to be dealt with, I can put structures and people and resources in place to make sure. That we handle those types of scenarios in the future. It's a lesson, right? Something I can learn. Something I can grow from. Um, I think that's the good news about, like, any mistakes that's made is you learn from it and you can do better in the future.

So, yeah, number one reason is just like, hey, this just sucks. We all have had failures. There's just no way to go through this life without ever having failed at anything. And, just so happens to be far more public than some other stuff might be, right? If you fail in private, no big deal. And then failing in public is just, it's a completely different experience, right?

And so that's one of the things that I had to face in pulling the plug on it. Number two, moving to a different site or a different platform or a different brand. You know, you think you might have something on your hands when it's getting a certain amount of traffic and conversion sales. And then moving over to something entirely new or different could be risky.

I guess I sort of had something in my back pocket, which is the fact that content marketing musician, while not thriving, sort of did well on its own in that it kind of began to attract some traffic without really a whole lot of effort. There was no backlash around the brand. Even though I was thinking about maybe choosing a different brand, like the Renegade Musician, I also thought about keeping the Music Entrepreneur HQ brand.

There is just this growing awareness that it needed to be and it had to be something else. Content marketing musician has sort of been sitting in the background for a couple of years. And so at that point, I just finally decided, look, there's, no one said they don't like it. No one said it's bad. So why don't we just go with content marketing musician?

All the stuff is there already. And another factor is, and I really think it ties right back into what I just said is, like, the work. What, how much do you need to move over in terms of content? Or what do you want to move over? If you want to look at, I mean, we had 800, 900 posts on Music Entrepreneur HQ.

We could have posed those to help a lot more than that. But even 800, 900 posts, like, you have to take inventory of that. Check which ones are getting the most traffic and decide whether it's worth it. Well, for you to transfer that over to your website, and that's going to be based on content that not just getting the most traffic, but maybe led to some conversions that maybe led to some purchases.

You don't want to hold on to everything, especially if you're trying to erect something kind of new and have it perceived as new, but you also don't want to leave opportunity in the table and sometimes making a complete inventory of that and figuring out which piece to keep can be a really It's a lengthy, tough job, but ultimately pulling the plug would have freed up a lot of time.

It would have freed up a lot of mental energies. It would have allowed me to focus on the creation of new classes and products and courses and books. So with all the potential upside that was always there, not like it wasn't present, but I think what I needed was more belief in myself and that's what I cultivated over time, especially in the Intensive Leadership Program I was taking, and so it can be really hard to know and to pull the plug sometimes, but think the moment that you're really starting to get that feeling, and it may be subtle, and it may not even be screaming out at you, but over time it's kind of just dripping, dripping, and dripping at you.

Then, you know, it's time to pull the plug and start fresh. Because sometimes you can't do anything, especially with something that doesn't have a solid foundation. If it has a great foundation, you can always tear down some of the floors and rebuild them. But if it doesn't have the foundation that it needs or needed, good luck.

I think starting fresh is the way to go. So, be mindful, be aware of things that you should or you need to unplug to really create the space. Time, money, energy, mind space, resources, even team. What could you give up, free up? More of your time and be able to focus on something that's really going to have the type of payoff that you're looking for.

Many are under the impression that they can understand a book without reading it in full. But even with books that have rather obvious titles, sometimes if you don’t dig a little deeper, you don’t come away with the gold.

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares what readers may have missed about The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship.

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship: A marketing misstep

01:02 – Standing out from the crowd

01:35 – But it’s not just about standing out – there’s got to be strategy

03:26 – Finding resonance with an audience

05:52 – The value is in the process

06:24 – Becoming known for something is crucial to creating your celebrity effect

08:23 – Without work, your “Triangle” doesn’t work

Transcript:

A few years ago, I came out with the book, The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship, and I can admit it… I think it’s not the best example of marketing.

The subtitle was Making and Selling Your Neon Yellow Tiger. I don't have the I think people got this right away, at least those who are familiar with Seth Godin, it's kind of like Purple Cow. I felt that comparison could end up helping the book but I’m not sure it did.

And I also feel like people missed some important things in that book. It's not just a book about being unusual and standing out.

Although that is huge today. Look at what music is right now. Every song has the same damn drumbeat. Every song has the same damn singing style. And it's awful.

And if you were to go out there and release something that's different from any of that but it still had pop appeal, it would stand out like crazy.

But as a book, it's not just about “Hey, let's try to be different and unique.” Those types of opportunities are rare. I hear people talking about micro niches and whatnot. I’m not a micro niche king, so maybe I don’t know. I just don't think it's a sound strategy for a lot of people.

Like, “Let me decide today that I'm going to be a jungle beat techno DJ guitarist Japanese oriental pop music fusion band.” Maybe it hasn't been done, but what's the appeal?

A few people are going to come around and listen and watch just because it sounds ridiculous, but trying to build a fan base… That I'm not so sure.

You must be sure about the impact you want to make. What's the difference you want to make? Who are you appealing to? Who is your dream customer?

I have a friend who decided to start a college party band. So, they oriented their music and their look and their merchandise and their slogans and their website and everything around college parties.

And guess what? They did very well in the college scene. Weird how that works.

So, many artists don't have that level of intention. It's like, “I want people to notice how amazing my music is. I want people to notice how amazing that little guitar solo was. I want people to notice how amazing my vocal style was.”

Well, maybe true and maybe not. And competing on those things, it's tough trying to find something that’s unique that has not been done before. Competing at that level, it's not going to be easy.

But competing on brand, look, most artists don't have one. They don't become known for something.

Most artists don't have a brand, which means the bar is quite low when it comes to winning the branding game.Share on X

So, here’s what’s being missed – it's The Music Entrepreneur Triangle. I've talked about it many times before. At the foundation of the triangle is work. And then the other two sides of the triangle are celebrity and diversification. But everything is built on a foundation of work. You may need to try many things to find what resonates with an audience.

And you will know. It's not like it's going to be accidental. You post a bunch of YouTube videos, and you get three views, 15 views, 1,000 views, 50 views, and 100 views…

But then suddenly, having stayed consistent in your craft and iterating and trying different things, suddenly a video gets 50,000 views. And that's when you must stop and go, “Oh, I think we just did something that people like.”

And now you need to look seriously at how you can iterate on it or replicate it or use those same ingredients to create something more, something new, something unique.

At that point, you're tapped into a formula. You don’t need to start from scratch anymore.

At first, you're throwing hooks out there to see what the fish bite on. But once you have a much better sense of what people are biting on, then it's time to keep doing what's working.

You don't want to stop doing that. Keep the winners, and ditch the losers, right? Don't worry too much about the losers. You're going to have a lot of them. But when you find a winner, that's a rare thing. That's a unicorn. Hold on to the unicorns and ditch the donkeys. Poor donkey. But you don't need donkeys.

Hold on to the unicorns and ditch the donkeys.Share on X

What you're working towards and putting in all this time and effort is to get to the unicorn. Guess what? It might take a while to get to that unicorn, right? But while you're doing it, you're finding your voice. You're learning. You're growing. You're throwing stuff out there. You're finding your audience. You're trying different things. You're experimenting.

So, the value is in the process and a lot of people are not willing to go through that process. But this is why rapidly creating and publishing and iterating and experimenting and iterating and adjusting and revising, continually going through that process is so valuable. One of these times you're going to hit the video that gets 50,000 views, or 100,000 views, or 1,000,000 views.

But if you don't put in the work, you can't expect it to happen. So, you’ve got to become known for something. That's the only way you're ever going to achieve celebrity status.

You won't become known for anything if you don't put in the work.Share on X

I'm not talking about becoming a worldwide global phenomenon that everybody knows. I'm not talking about becoming Johnny Depp or anything of the sort. I’m talking about creating a celebrity effect with your audience. And that's a desirable thing because the celebrity effect will have people behave irrationally when it comes to you selling things. And when it comes to your customers buying new things that you create, you want them to be irrational.

You don't want to have to sit there and convince them that it's a good product that they should buy and why they must buy and why they should buy it. When you have a celebrity effect, selling will almost happen on autopilot and that's a desirous thing that's going to happen as you become known for something.

As I said earlier, you will need to try many things, but what you're going to become known for is one thing. And once you find that one thing that resonates, you will have built a bit of a celebrity effect already.

When you have that celebrity effect is the time to diversify, but before then is not. You want to remain as focused as you can be, putting stuff out there, trying different things to see what works, to see what resonates, to see what your audience latches onto.

You look at someone like Dr. Dre, well, what did he become known for? He became known as a rapper. It's as simple as that, but he was a huge part of the outgrowth of Gangsta rap, right?

And then later he built Beats, and maybe Dre will be remembered for that. I'm not saying he won’t. But the thing that he's going to be remembered for most isn't necessarily the brand that he created, but rather the music.

So, what are you doing? What does your work ethic look like right now? Without that, the triangle doesn't work.

Even when it comes to time to diversify. Sure, you might have a lot of people around you whispering in your ears “Let's do this. Let's do that. Let's create merch. Let's put something new out there.”

But bottom line is it’s going to require something on your part. You can pay people to do many things, but you’ve got to listen to the right people too. Listening to just anyone is not going to do it.

And that's the essence of The Essential Guide to Creative Entrepreneurship. So, if for some reason you thought, “It’s just Purple Cow and I need to stand out, that's only a piece of it.

Building communities can sometimes be a challenging thing. You don’t always see eye to eye with others. There’s always the opportunity to have conversations and work it out, but misunderstandings and misconceptions can sometimes cloud better judgment.

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David recalls a specific community experience he had and how he felt about it.

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – David’s community-building experience

01:04 – Working with a community collaborator

01:33 – Looking for venues

02:08 – “We’re not going to teach anyone anything”

04:15 – The sacredness of teaching and instruction

05:47 – Making yourself small to avoid the difference you can make

07:13 – Being triggered is an opportunity

07:32 – Just daring enough to believe that you can change the world

Transcript:

Building communities is something that I've been doing in the last eight years or so. And it wasn't exactly me… I grew up in the church and in the church, communities are part of the equation.

And it's one of those environments where there are some people who are hired to do what they do or are compensated or incentivized in some way. But most people there are volunteering in some capacity. Some churches are super busy and big and have paid positions.

You'll find that small or medium sized community churches rely and depend on giving as well as volunteers.

So, community, I guess you could say, has always been a part of my DNA. But my community collaborator was initially the catalyst for most events I was a part of.

That encouraged me, and my collaborator was interested in building communities almost on an experimental basis, just to see how people would participate and react and join and be a part of it. Building something that they would love and inviting them to be a part of it.

So, I remember one time we went down looking for venues where we could bring our community gatherings. It was an important part of the whole process.

One time we were going down to a specific venue in downtown Calgary and having a look over. And we were also talking to the owner about being part of our community.

She was interested in being a part of it and leading one of our regular ongoing events and that was great. And at one point she said something that made me wonder… I didn’t know exactly how to take it.

What she said was, “We're not going to teach anyone anything.” I think her perspective was sort of that there are few people that either venue owners or previous business owners or people like me that have online coaching and info product businesses that were known or movers and shakers or influencers or that have some clout in a community.

So, “We need to like remain humble and not teach anyone anything.” I thought it was a strange comment.

The reason I had trouble identifying with it is because the whole thing about community… I'm sure you've seen it before; you've had that experience of going to a rinky-dink operation that wasn't anything special.

Like a gathering of random people and where random things happen. Maybe there's a bit of food and maybe there's a bit of a program, but it’s effectively amateur hour.

But we always strove to be a above amateur hour because that's everything we weren’t about. We wanted to avoid that. We wanted to create quality events that ran on time and had a specific agenda and schedule to them. I think even “intention” is a better word than “agenda.”

So that's why I was like, “That's a strange and interesting comment.” Maybe it had something to do with the way she specifically understood what we were trying to do. I don't know.

It's also possible that she checked out some of my content and what I was up to in my coaching and info-product businesses and kind of went like, “That's exactly what we're not going to do. We're not that.”

And look, I do think there is something sacred about teaching. I don't think anyone should just decide to become a teacher.

I feel… And I could even give evidence for the fact that I was born to teach. It's just built in me. I almost can't stop it from happening. It's not like I wake up and go, “I should teach people things today.” It's more like it pours out of me and I can't help it. And I can't stop it from pouring out.

This podcast is the perfect example. There's always new, fresh content that I'm recording and sharing with you. Because there are things that strike me. I have things I want to share with you.

So, maybe she checked out some of my stuff, and she’s like, “That's exactly what we're not going to do.”

But maybe not. I don't want to make too many speculations or assumptions there about what she had or hadn't seen from us before, because I was not the only person involved. And in fact, I was usually the associate producer or a tech host, not the leader.

Not like communities necessarily have a hierarchy, but every business and every community sort of ends up being a pyramid, no matter how you attempt to structure it.

There aren’t any situations where everyone's a leader where that works, right? So, it must be structured in a way that's going to have things move and have things happen.

And here's what I think about it. Again, I do think teaching is sacred. And at the same time, entrepreneurs are the ones just daring enough to believe that they can and will change the world.

Entrepreneurs are the ones just daring enough to believe that they can and will change the world.Share on X

And how are you going to do that? How are you going to do that by trying to avoid the very thing that needs to be done?

Maybe it's not teaching, but it's still going to involve writing, speaking, presenting. It's going to involve some kind of communication at some level.

And you can't prevent anyone from interpreting it in a specific way. Some people will always interpret it as “He's preaching” or “He's teaching” or “He's coming at me.”

And that's not it. Sometimes we're supposed to be triggered by whatever we've heard. We heard it the way we were supposed to hear it, even if it wasn't exactly what was said.

We hear things the way we're supposed to hear them, even if it wasn't exactly what was said.Share on X

Sometimes we assume it's like, “I felt bad because of what he said.” No, you felt bad because of the specific experiences you've had, and because of the things you've gone through, as well as the way you listened and heard what was being said.

You must take responsibility. I must take responsibility for what I say. But you also must take responsibility for what you heard. Sometimes it's not going to be the same thing. The two aren't always going to match up. And I think that's where often at some level, we're always going to miss each and potentially be triggered.

But being triggered, people assume it's bad thing. And I go, “That's an opportunity to look at something in you. It's an opportunity to look at maybe what's not working or look at something that has not been dealt with from your past that needs to be dealt with.”

So, that's my feeling on it. I’ve got to teach because I'm just daring enough to believe that I can change the world, that I can make a difference for artists.

And if I make a difference for artists, it's going to change so many things. If artists have access to successful business models, if artists have access to great resources, if artists have access to funds and other benefits that so many other people have in different industries that for some reason artists just don't have…

If we can better that situation, and what it means to be an artist, and it's not a constant struggle or fight between jobs and trying to find funding and crowdfunding and… You just don't understand it unless you're in this world. But if I can transform and make things better for artists, I believe that can ripple out and change the entire world. That's why I do what I do.

That's why sometimes quote unquote “I teach,” but that doesn't mean I don't believe it's sacred.

Teaching is sacred.Share on X

Why listen to audio every day? What’s the point? Does this daily habit yield any tangible results?

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why you need to overwhelm

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – Getting yourself on a personal development program

00:46 – Why the regular consumption of self-development is critical

01:45 – Putting yourself in harm’s way of positive people and positive input

02:27 – Even with your best efforts, the negative can still seep in

02:54 – Giving yourself a brain cleansing

04:14 – You don’t bathe just once, you shouldn’t consume positive material just once

05:10 – If you want to stay stuck, don’t do anything

Transcript:

I talk about personal development a lot. I talk about reading books and listening to audios and setting minimums for each of those.

I suggest reading for 15 minutes per day, something relevant, something that's going to help you grow as a person or something that's going to help you grow your career. Same with audio. Listen for 30 minutes per day.

Understand that those are minimums, right? We're not talking about that's maximum. Those are minimums that you want to remain consistent with daily.

But what's the big deal about listening to 30 minutes of audio per day, and why is that an activity that even matters?

People talk about children like they're impressionable. They'll pick up things easily, the attitudes and behaviors of others. And it's true, but it's no less true, I find, that adults pick up the attitudes and beliefs in others that they listen to consistently. That's how beliefs are instilled.

Thoughts get repeated over and over. The same thoughts come up again and again. This is what the media does. This is what mainstream music does. This is what magazines do. This is even what society does.

So, you hear it enough times from enough credible, authoritative sounding people, and then you hear other people that you know in your life, like your parents or your pastor, people you respect, repeat those things to you, and parrot those things to you.

You begin to believe them because it's a thought and every time that thing is said it's triggered and remembered and reinforced as a thought over and over.

Understand that we do our best – at least the people who are ambitious – are very intentional and conscious to surround themselves with positive input and positive people so we can get into a positive upward exponential curve of positive thoughts, building on positive thoughts, because they do.

One positive thought tends to build on another, and they also tend to be far more powerful than negative thoughts.

So, when people get so caught up in, “I'm worried that all these negative thoughts are going to cause bad things in my life,” you're sort of creating your own rule. One positive thought can sometimes disperse thousands of negative ones in its place.

But as much as we might try to surround ourselves with good things, good audios, good books, good magazines, good resources, good people, it's just inevitable. Because of YouTube, because of our content addictions, because of podcasts, because of radio, because of independent news sources… negative things sometimes seep their way in.

Some people might call it a brainwashing, but I prefer the term “Brain cleansing.” What you're doing when you're listening to audios every day is you're cleansing your brain. You're returning it to a normal state.

If you had to spend the whole day at work listening to negative people, listening to negative news, negative forecasts, negative P&L statements, what is your experience going to be having come home from that?

If you've absorbed that all day, how can you have it not impact you? It will. And you'll be tired, and you'll go like, “Why would I want to do anything else today?” And you won't. And that's the cycle many people end up finding themselves in, and they don't realize that everything they're hearing and listening to on the way to work and at work and on the way back from work is taking its mental and emotional toll.

So, you wonder why you're so tired, and that's a big piece of it. You're not surrounded by enough positive.

Listening to audio for 30 minutes per day offers that opportunity to get back to center. You can ground yourself. And if you keep listening beyond 30 minutes, it's an opportunity to go into an even more positive cycle.

You need a lot of positive reinforcement to get back to neutral. But once you're back to neutral, then you can start a new positive cycle.

It's like bathing, right? Or showering, as the case might be. You don't have to shower every day. That's sort of the rule we have. I think people would look very strange to you in Japan if you did not shower and bathe every day.

That's kind of a tradition there. And I remember that growing up.

But bathing and showering is recommended on a regular, ongoing basis. And for very good reason – it doesn't last. So, personal development, and I think Zig Ziglar was the one to say this, but we recommend it daily because it doesn't last. Just like bathing, it does not last. You must keep engaging.

Just like bathing, personal development doesn't last. That's why it should be a daily habit.Share on X

You must keep going back to audios that support you and help you and lift you up and empower you, and inspire you, so you can stay on a positive cycle.

And guaranteed you want to stay on that positive cycle if you want to see awesome things happen in your career. If you don't care or if you just want to stay stuck and, in a rut, and doing the same things that you've done to this point, then don't worry about it. Don't engage in personal development.

But if you want to make sure that your brain is cleansed, that you can get yourself back to neutral even after a not-so-great day, and you can even get yourself back onto a positive cycle, and then stay in that positive cycle, then 30 minutes of audio per day is recommended.

You’ve put in the work. But how long does it take for the results to show up? Sometimes, the wait can feel like forever.

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares the importance of playing the long game and understanding that the people who want to do business with you may not commit to following through today.

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – The ideal customer

00:52 – Passionate hobbyist vs. artistic entrepreneurship

01:35 – Earning six-figures and beyond as a musician

02:18 – It took three years for a prospect to turn into a customer

02:56 – Picking a channel that works for you and publishing daily

04:33 – The value of long-term thinking

05:53 – The way David started thinking about SEO

06:23 – Content or personality?

07:40 – Are you willing to stick it out?

Transcript:

One of my customers recently purchased two courses. And he could not be more perfect. He’s exactly the kind of person that I want to attract into my business. He's in college and he's community minded and oriented, and he wants to build a business out of his music, or at least think of himself as a music business rather than what most artists think – they're artists or musicians.

At worst you're an artist or a musician. At best you're an entertainer, and if you want to take it beyond that you’ve got to be an entrepreneur.

He gets all that, and he sees that a lot of people around him don't have that kind of mindset. They just want to be artists.

And I'm aware, there are people out there, and maybe even some of you listening, you just want to be an artist. I’m not going to say there are no opportunities in that, but I would say most people that are operating in that capacity are passionate hobbyists, right?

And there's nothing wrong with being a passionate hobbyist. That category is great for people who want to enjoy making music, writing music, playing music.

But there's a category of people who are wanting to think about it more entrepreneurially and set themselves up early so that they can succeed later.

I wrote a blog post in like 2020 on how to earn six figures and beyond as a musician. That's over three years ago. And this customer told me that this was one of the first blog posts he had read on my website.

So, I got to thinking… I've published tons of content over the years. So much so that some people have prompted and asked me, “What's the deal man? You’re publishing on every subject,” and by the time you've published 50 posts or even 100 posts, you've kind of covered the key things. Then you’ve got to expand out into niche topics from there. It's just the way it works.

So, maybe this is a little bit weird headed, but it means it took three years for that customer to mature.

Maybe he read that blog post this year. Maybe it finally ranked in Google or just happenstance. It's something he was looking for and managed to find, but it took three years for me to get that customer.

So often we're thinking, "I'm going to publish today and be rich tomorrow." Which is just categorically not the way it typically works. You've got to stay consistent over the long haul. You've heard this before and yet if you miss the point of it, you're just not going to do it.

025 – Why You Must Play the Long GameShare on X

And I think this is why there should be emphasis on choosing a channel that works for you, whether it's blogging or podcasting or making videos.

Some of that will be handled with AI to some capacity moving forward. If you want to inject the content with your personality and stories, which I would recommend doing, I honestly think that might be the only way to properly build a following. You’ve got to put some time into this, and preferably, publish daily.

But people go, “Yeah, that's so smart, David. I'm going publish podcasts and then my customers aren't going to find it because they're in the wrong industry.”

It doesn't matter. I don't know too many people that aren't on the platforms. Think of it this way.

Who is not on YouTube? If you're making video content, that's the place to be. Apple. That represents a huge category of people. And that's where podcasts go and they can be further distributed to Spotify, Amazon, iHeart, and a lot of other places where your target audience could be waiting for you.

And then we’ve got blogs and people are like, “Well, if I just publish my own blog, no one's going to reach me.” And even there, you can syndicate your content, right? There are so many opportunities to get your content into other major publications or minor publications, whatever the case may be.

Guest posts. You can put your content on Medium and Tealfeed and I've kept a list of sites like that and there are others where you can publish and share your content and where people gather to read.

But the point is if I hadn't published that post three years ago, sure, that customer may have still found my content, but would he have bought the courses? Would he have taken the leap? Would he have taken the next step? And that's a big “if.”

So, long-term thinking is needed. I’ve heard my coach James Schramko talk about this as well that content is a long play. If that’s the only thing you're counting on you better count on waiting for a while for people to listen and tune in and read your stuff and engage with you before they buy anything.

Content is a long play.Share on X

Content is about throwing hooks in the water seeing what the fish bite on. Finding the ponds where the fish gather and throwing hooks in the water to see which ones they bite on.

You make your best guesses because you're it's not like you're going to know. You can look at other content that's doing well and maybe reverse engineer some of that, but it's mostly hypothesis. It's just your best guess.

Eventually you're going to find a resonance. It’s inevitable as you continue to learn about your audience and tweak your strategy and adjust your content, you're going to find an audience. It's inevitable. But the point is you’ve got to stick to it. And that's why it's so important to choose a medium that you can see yourself doing consistently and enjoy.

But this is increasingly the way I've been thinking about SEO as well. In the past, I almost thought of it as a reliable strategy. Now that I think about it, I think I was crazy to ever think that content would attract anyone, but it does, right? For reasons we already talked about.

But SEO is mostly this, that if you just put enough stuff out there, you can't necessarily control who comes to see it. But if you're lucky and strike gold, people gather around to watch. That's content. That's SEO.

And I know that there are people out there that go deep into this stuff. And I have the utmost respect for someone like Neil Patel. I checked out his content. He's cool. And the stuff he talks about, it's obviously working for him.

The interesting part is I think it has a lot more to do with his personality and how that draws people in and attracts them.

He's kind of their hero versus the content he's publishing. And that's no slight against the content he's publishing, but honestly, I'm reading some of it. Not all of it. Again, I've gotten huge value out of it, but I'm reading the content and going, “This is nothing special. It’s not that good.”

There's an aspect to this whole thing that's personality driven, and that's something Russell Brunson would call the “Attractive Character.”

If you're going to do anything, if you're going to publish, then you want to look at how to build an Attractive Character. How to become someone that people are magnetized to and resonate with.

And that's probably going to mean being an exaggerated version of yourself, but being authentic, being vulnerable, showing up, sharing your stories, and even sharing your vulnerable moments with your audience.

Content is not going to happen right away. It's going to take some time. And in the meantime, are you willing to stick with the program of showing up, doing the work, publishing?

Or are you going to give up? And if you do give up, who do you leave behind? Who will you not have the opportunity to attract? To add value to, to make a difference for, to have an impact on. That's what I want you to think about.

Do you ever feel like you’ve never succeeded at anything? It can feel that way sometimes, but if you were to dig deeper into your accomplishments, you would find that you have succeeded at many things. Unfortunately, they may have gone unnoticed…

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how to break free of the self-sabotage cycle.

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – The story that many cling to

00:42 – Taking inventory of successes

01:28 – Self-sabotage

02:19 – How to overcome self-sabotage

03:48 – Keep doing what’s working

Transcript:

I don't have any successes, and nothing I do ever works. That's a story, but many people do believe it. Trust me, I've felt that way too, but it's a feeling. It's not logical. It's all based on emotion. The idea that you've never succeeded at anything. It's simply not true. You have succeeded at some things.

What needs to happen is you need to sit down and start taking inventory. When did you have those successes?

It could be getting 100% on your English essay in grade 12. It could be that YouTube video you posted that got 100,000 views. It could be the song you released that somehow made it into the iTunes or Apple Music charts. If you go digging for things, you will find them.

Now, they may not have led to the magnitude of lasting success that you were looking for, ongoing success, or building on successes. Trust me, I've experienced that too, and you don't even know how human that is, but hopefully, by the end of this podcast, you will discover.

So, here's what happens, right? We're on our merry way. We're trying things, trying things, trying things. Enjoying ourselves. Pursuing our passions.

And then suddenly something kind of hits. Maybe not on a massive viral million-views kind of scale, but something stands out. Something gets more listens or views than anything else you've ever done.

And then, magically, for some reason, you stop doing that thing. The thing that worked in the first place.

Chances are that's some form of fear of success, right? It's like, “Okay, you this thing did well, better tone it down, back off a bit, and go back to doing some average, ordinary things that are never going to lead to the same results.”

This is not happening consciously. It's happening subconsciously. Your subconscious or the thoughts that are stored in there are sabotaging you.

So, what can we do about that? If it's so human to find success and then stop doing the things that get us to success… And I can't tell you how many times I've repeated that cycle. What can we do about it? What can we do about staying on course, not becoming fearful, and not letting our subconscious thoughts sabotage us completely?

And the main thing that you can do that I've discovered is to catch yourself. Catch yourself when this happens. When one of your songs suddenly gets 10, 000 streams in a week, stop. Notice.

Are you about to go back to something subpar, ordinary, or average, in favor of doing more of what works? Because if you want to build on that success, you’ve got to identify the things you did right and do them again.

This takes some mental work. It's not always immediately obvious what you did right. It's not always immediately obvious the steps that led there. But you’ve got to stop and think about it. You must be willing to do the intellectual work to find what it is that made that thing a success.

And then, as soon as possible, follow it up. Follow it up with something that uses the formula, or at least the best you can understand that formula. Do that again.

I've been reflecting on things lately, and it's just astounding to me how many times I've sabotaged myself on some level. I switched mediums completely, jumping from maybe a video or a YouTube channel to a podcast, or maybe a podcast to a blog. After I found some success in those fields.

So, the number one thing you can do to avoid that is to notice, catch yourself doing it, stop, and get back to the thing that was working.

And of course, in between that, or during that phase, identify the formula. What was it about what you did that led to the success you managed to capture?

How many income streams do you have as an artist? Do you often look for ways to monetize your career outside of live performance, merchandise, and streaming royalties?

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David highlights the importance of thinking like an entrepreneur.

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – Resistance to earning additional income streams

00:41 – Why you need to begin thinking outside the box

01:24 – The soft skills and hard skills you develop as a musician

02:58 – Making an income from music in 30 ways?

03:22 – Limiting mindsets won’t serve you

05:03 – Be willing to explore the opportunities as they arise

Transcript:

I'm kind of amazed at how many musicians are resistant to creating or having revenue streams that aren't somehow directly connected to their music. Like if it's not gigging and live performance, and if it's not streaming royalties, and if it's not merch sales, and maybe sync licensing would go in that category too, “Then I just don't want it.”

I mean if you want to create a sustainable and profitable career, you may need to start thinking a little outside of those categories, because I don't think you've done the math. I don't think you've looked at the odds.

And we all hate that right? Like we've all been told by people “Oh, you know the odds of becoming a successful musician,” but that's not what I'm talking about.

We need to practice accurate thinking and accurate thinking requires that we look into not just statistics but gain a very deep understanding of markets and audience and customers, so that we can create a strategy that is going to get us to where we want to go.

I remember reading an article many years ago and I wish I could remember who it was because I would credit him. But he was talking about how you're developing a lot of soft skills and hard skills as a musician.

If you're committed to your growth, and I think a lot of people still aren't committed to “Let me invest in myself first, and then I'll become the kind of person that naturally attracts opportunity.”

But those who are continually developing themselves are aware of this. They become aware of the many opportunities available.

The more you develop yourself, the more you become aware of opportunity.Share on X

And so, the skills they gain along the way, they've realized they could write articles, which we might be at the tail end of that reality now, like making money on articles. We'll see. Like I said before, demand is still going up for me, but the reality is this could be the beginning of the end because of AI.

You could take on public speaking engagements, you could do something as obscure as build a lead generation business. There are so many skills you're going to learn along the way, whether that's setting up a website or writing a bio or editing a video or putting together a logo.

And ideally, yeah, we wouldn't do all this ourselves. We would find people and professionals that can handle that on our behalf. And with AI coming in, I mean, some of those tasks are going to be handled by AI moving forward.

But you've gained the skills to be able to do many things well, and there may be lean times. There may be times when you need a little bit of additional income to make your gigging and career dreams a reality.

I've talked about how I've made money from music in 27 ways. It's honestly probably close to 30 by now, with all the things that I've done. And sometimes people just scoff at it, right? They're like, “Oh, well, that's not live performance, and that's not making music and writing songs.”

And I'm like, “Well, okay, so first, all those things are on there. But secondly, if you're thinking like an entrepreneur, you can't help but seize the opportunities that come.”

I think what happens is we easily get stuck in limiting mindsets that don't support us getting to where we want to go. There's something to be said for focusing on two or three revenue streams and establishing them before trying to do a whole bunch else.

Don't get stuck in a limiting mindset that doesn't support you in getting you to where you want to go.Share on X

And at the same time, if you're limiting yourself and avoiding opportunity and not thinking outside the box, it's kind of like this story that's been told and retold, and I'm probably going to butcher it…

But there's a pastor or a priest sitting at a church, and then he hears news of a coming flood. So, he prays to God and asks God to save him. And then the flood is getting so bad that he’s forced to go all the way on top of the roof, the steeple of the church.

And then someone comes by with a rowboat and says, “Hey, pastor, it's getting worse. You’ve got to get in now. There isn't much time.” And he says, “No, it's okay. God will save me.”

And then a motorboat comes by, and they say, “Pastor, there's no time left, the water's going to keep rising, you’ve got to get in and save yourself.” And he says, “No, it's okay, God will save me.”

And then a helicopter comes, and the pastor, the priest, is at the very top of the steeple, on top of the cross now.

And they're saying, “Pastor, this is your last chance, you’ve got to get out now, the water's getting higher, you're not going to survive. You’ve got to get in and get out.” He says, “No, it's okay, God will save me.”

So, he ends up dying and going to heaven, and he asks St. Peter, “I kept asking God to save me, what happened?”

And St. Peter says, “Oh, he sent you three opportunities to be saved.”

Sometimes, in fact, most of the time, we're praying for things that are already in our midst. We're just refusing to look around. Don't pass things up because they don't seem to fit into the narrow little box that you've created for yourself.

Most of the time, we're praying for things that are already in our midst. We're just refusing to look around.Share on X

Really take the time, explore them, examine them, figure out what the opportunity is, and if it makes sense, take it on.

Sometimes, you don’t get what you’ve asked for. You can pivot and go in an entirely new direction. Or you can decide to do everything yourself.

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how he decided to learn new media all by himself.

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – The story of how David ended up learning new media by himself

02:27 – Figuring out how to create content

04:23 – The trick to audio sweetening

05:18 – The evolution of David’s new media journey

06:14 – One microphone changed everything

07:02 – The pros and cons of a content first approach

08:12 – Capturing ideas as they come to you

09:33 – Don’t worry about the gear – start recording!

Transcript:

In 2009, I was thinking about going to school for a new media course, and I think I've told that story before. My grades were fine, there just weren't enough seats for me to be able to join the class, which primarily focused on podcasting, video, and composing music for video games.

It was right around that point that I decided, I didn't get into this course, and I ended up applying through a strange set of circumstances anyway. Originally, I was just going to audit a composition course because I was like, “Well, I want to continue to invest in my growth. I'm just not sure if I'm ready to enroll.”

And then I was told by the professor, “Why audit? You could totally enroll in this.” And that's where the seed was originally planted.

So, when school didn't work out, I made that transition very quickly to, “Well, I think I can do it myself.” It was then and there that I decided, “Let me learn the art of podcasting, and making videos, and composing for video games by myself.”

And that's what I ended up doing. I started a YouTube channel for video game and movie reviews. I ended up kick starting the David Andrew Wiebe Podcast. As an extension of those projects, I ended up composing music. Maybe not a ton of music, but certainly like 10, 20 tracks. The music appears in some of my videos as well.

That YouTube channel did alright over time. I think it was just good timing. I could record a little bit of gameplay footage and get a few thousand views. Those were the days, that was a fun time for YouTube.

We've switched things up quite a bit, so I'm not too sure if there are any old guard listeners out there that remember all those projects, but if there are, just know that I super appreciate you because if you've followed me to this point, you've had to hop at least two other podcasts just to get here. So, thank you, thank you, thank you if you have been following me since that time.

And I remember thinking to myself at that time, “I don't even know how to record myself. I just know that I have a headset.”

Which, oddly enough, those have somewhat increased in popularity in recent years. I was kind of surprised to find that because my experience with my headset was fine, I suppose, but it wasn't anything special.

As I'm speaking, the headband would make a lot of crackling noises, and I was like, “This is kind of weird.” But I figured out how to do it at least at a very basic level. I don't even remember what I was using to record at the time.

It was a USB headset, and I found some kind of recording app on the PC. Well, it's that hard to believe that it's that far back at this point that I can't even remember what I was using.

But I plugged it in and recorded myself and away I went, right? And the podcast got going.

My first video edit that I ever did, too, was a review of a wrestling game from Super Famicom or Super Nintendo, if you will. And it went much the same way. I had to figure it out as I went. I used Windows Movie Maker to put it together.

And then I got a little bit of help from my buddy, Adam, who knew our home studio better than I did. I think at that point he'd gotten married and moved out when I was getting started on these projects.

But he came back and showed me the ropes with some of the gear and how to use the mics and stuff like that. So that was my next obsession, like, “Oh, great. I get to record now sort of on a more professional capacity using… not top-grade microphones, but studio quality or beginner studio quality microphones.” And that was kind of exciting and we had some ups and downs with that too.

But the good news is I knew little thing about audio sweetening and what sort of software I could use to automatically create great masters of my podcast. I'm honestly surprised that people still don't know this.

They think they must sit there and sweeten the audio themselves. And I mean, look, you're going to get way better quality that way, but the software that does it automatically, it's just so good. And it's so fast, too.

But there are just so many people that don't know about it, so their audio totally sucks. Even if they have good quality video or whatever else, they just don't get it.

There used to be CN Levelator. It has a great piece of kit, and you can still technically download it. It’s not supported anymore, but still seems to work fine, at least for me.

Nowadays you’ve got Auphonic, and I think you get up to two hours of free audio per month to sweeten up and enhance automagically. So, why are podcasters not using that? Regardless of source, of how they capture their voice, microphone or otherwise, I just don't know.

Anyway, the point being, evolution continued from there and when I moved out of my house and into the basement suite I continued in a very similar capacity. I held on to a few mics that I liked and continued using those for podcasting.

Things finally changed for me when I moved to another house. Another basement. A little bit later, I think it was like a year and a half or two years later, and I finally bought the Rode Procaster.

And I felt cool, right? I didn't podcast for a year, so on the one hand I was like, “Why did I buy it?” But as I was studying some new methods of podcasting that I hadn't tried that I thought could work for me, I got excited again.

So, I think within a year of taking a break, I was like, yeah, “I'm going to get back into podcasting.” And in 2016, I did exactly that.

So, that purchase of a microphone made me feel like a pro in a way that that I hadn’t before. It's funny to me though, like how we all obsessed over that. I guess I was somewhat similar, but I didn't wait to get started.

I didn't wait to have a great setup or a great microphone or figure out how to connect an XLR cable to an audio interface to a computer, which, let's face it, it was software based in the box. Recording was still kind of new at the time that I was getting started. Nowadays, it's plug and play, but let's face it, it wasn't always that way.

I geeked out and learned how to use it. And I liked the Rode Procaster. It sounded great. It's not without its flaws, but with the right gear, you can kind of compensate for it and have it sound great, especially with some of the audio sweetening tools I talked about.

I spent a lot of time… I was convinced this content thing, somehow this content thing is going to pay off. And I wasn't wrong. Certainly not. It helped us attract a lot of, guest posters and advertisers and, and sometimes sponsors and things like that. So, I wasn’t wrong.

It helped drive affiliate sales and product sales and book sales and stuff like that as well, but long term it didn't work out that well.

There were two factors. There was a botnet attack on the website that, at the time I would have had no way of knowing. It's in retrospect that I learned about some of the security issues, what a botnet attack could potentially do to your website and even its ranking.

Second was some of the low-quality content we were publishing via guest posters. I had editors to manage it and look after it, but some of them just didn't do that great of a job. And I guess there was probably a little more of a money motive than a motive of synergy in terms of strategy and what we were hoping to accomplish.

I guess my point in all this is that this obsession with gear as well as like heavily scripted episodes is all over. I'm more in the routine and habit of recording my thoughts as they come to me. Sometimes several times a day. Usually at least once per day, although it may not happen every single day.

And I usually just get my iPhone out, and it's weird to say, but I think it's at this point that I've realized how powerful the iPhone is. You can record your audio, you can make your video, you can snap a quick photo for a YouTube thumbnail, and away you go, right? There’s your content, and you're done.

Of course, you're going to spend some time in editing and audio sweetening and whatever else to make the content look good, sound good, engaging, interactive, and all that kind of stuff. But as a capturing device, you know, it's almost unparalleled in its convenience now.

For me, it has become much more about regularity and showing up and sharing my thoughts, even if unscripted, and it’s not just my thoughts anymore. I’m keen on practicing and sharing my stories and putting them out there and seeing what connects with people more so than ever before.

So, you might have heard the advice before, but I have to say it rings true for me now. Don't worry about production value. Don't worry about microphones. If you're just getting started, simply start recording.

Don't worry about the gear. Worry about getting started. Share on X

We're not just talking about podcasts, right? We're talking about music, too. When I first started simultaneous pursuits of podcasting, composing, and editing videos, I was using Fruity Loops, but I honestly had no idea how to use it. It's called FL Studio nowadays,...

Has anything ever become so important to you that you thought to yourself, “I can’t live without this?” Do you sometimes have trouble “Letting go and letting God?”

In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how to reduce significance and how that can help you unlock desired outcomes in your artistic career.

Sponsors:

Clean Slate: The most exciting and inspirational New Year live music and multi-media event you’ve ever been to. Get your tickets now, before they’re gone!

Highlights:

00:17 – David’s discovery

00:34 – What does “reducing significance” mean?

01:08 – Desires are achieved in three ways

03:50 – How reducing significance works

07:04 – How does this apply to music?

Transcript:

Today I wanted to talk about something, I guess you could say it's maybe a little bit esoteric. But I'm always excited about sharing my new discoveries with you as well as how they can apply to your music career. So, I hope you enjoy this. I hope you find benefit in it.

And today's discovery is around reducing significance.

Now, I will do a little bit of work here to set this up. I'm going to lay the groundwork and create some context for you, so it makes sense.

But reducing significance is quite simply… sometimes you have big goals in life and you want them to happen. And because you want them to happen so badly, they don't happen.

We just become more and more significant about it. It's like, “This has to happen. Why hasn't it happened?”

And then years go by, and decades go by and we're wondering like, “What am I waiting for?” In those situations, one of the best things you can do is reduce significance. And we'll talk about why that is.

Now let's talk about desires here for a little bit. Desires are achieved basically in three ways. Okay.

So, number one is we set a goal. And we attain them.

All of these have their pros and cons, but we'll get into that as well.

So, number one, we set a goal and attain them.

Number two is we imagine having the thing already. Because the mind doesn't know the difference between reality and imagination, I'm not sure if you've heard that before. Assuming you don't deny your imagination, whatever you've imagined is true.

Assuming you don't deny your imagination, whatever you've imagined is true.Share on X

And the third way to achieve a desire is we cancel the desire completely. It's just like, “God, I don't care. It doesn't need to happen. I don't want it to happen.”

So, when you think about it, most people go about accomplishing using just number one, right? Brute force. “Let me just get this goal happening, I'm going to work my ass off every single day, get up at 5, go to sleep at 2, and work my butt off for 18 hours a day and get this thing happening.”

And yeah, there are things that can be and have been accomplished that way. But it's usually not the quickest way. And sometimes it separates you from your goal long term. And I mean years and sometimes decades.

Or they use number two. In other words, they imagine having it, but then they immediately go back to striving, like using number one brute force, go back to set goals, set more goals, make it happen, make it happen, make it happen.

Now, of course, this is not a chat about don't take actions. Not at all. I’m a big believer in taking actions and I take all kinds of actions daily to move my things forward.

And when I say “All kinds of actions,” usually on a to-do list, it looks like two or three things at most. But within those two or three things, there can be many things to do, so that's what I'm referring to there.

In a way, we kind of undo what we did right? If we imagine having what we want to have and we can feel it, we can taste it, we can touch it, we can smell it, but immediately go back to number one… “Well, I just had a nice meditation, but let me get back to my desk and work my ass off to make it happen,” we end up negating the work we did in imagining in the first place. Because striving is a sure way to keep you distance from your desires.

As time goes on, the desire becomes more and more significant and seemingly unattainable, which is the very thing that keeps us distance from it. We keep noticing the distance between where we are and where we want to be, what we have and what we don't have, what we've been striving for, what we've been trying to get, and all we can see now is the distance.

We feel further and further and further and further from it because what does striving do? Striving attracts more striving. So, we're inviting more striving into our lives by striving for things.

Therefore, reducing significance, at least the way that I think about it. An act of faith. It's saying, “Hey, I know it's coming, and I can peacefully and patiently wait. I'll go about my day knowing that my desire is on its way.”

But then the whole question is how do you reduce significance in such a way that you feel neutral about it?

I want to give you an example. And let's say the example is “I want to build a seven-figure business.”

You'd want to look at a spectrum. “On a scale of 1 to 10, where's my desire?”

Maybe when you're first getting started, you're somewhat neutral about it, but kind of unlikely, right? The reason people get into business is they're excited. So, chances are you're starting at a six or seven, and then the significance over time kind of inches its way up to like seven, eight, nine, maybe 10. And then it wavers between eight, nine, 10, eight, nine, 10, depending on the day and how you're feeling.

It's so significant and so important to you and the goal has become so monumental over time that it continues to create more distance between you and having it.

So, how do we reduce significance? How do we bring ourselves back to neutral or at least close to neutral… four might be a little on the negative side, but a five or six is perfectly acceptable, right?

You would say to yourself, you would start to imagine quote unquote, “negative scenarios.” It's not like these are going to happen.

It's not like you're calling these into existence, but you just go to yourself, “Maybe running a seven-figure business would be stressful and it would just take up all my time.” You linger on that thought and that inner significance goes down by a point.

Then you say to yourself, “Maybe I would sacrifice my health. Maybe my health wouldn't be so good if I was working all the time and then grinding the hustle.” That that brings it down a point or two.

And then you say, “Well, maybe my relationships will suffer if I have a seven-figure business.” And then that brings you back to about a neutral.

Now, look, you must keep this in mind. This is all made up, right? Because we're the ones making the rules, always.

So, when you say stuff like, “When I follow my bliss XYZ happens and bad things happen in my life,” you created that rule. No one else created that for you. That's an observation.

“Oh, that's not true, David. When I went and bought my guitar, then suddenly I went into debt.” Well, maybe you put yourself under financial pressure that you shouldn't have at that time, right? We still need to be smart about the decisions we make, but understand that, by and large, we are setting our own rules all the time.

So, using the method I just laid out, you can quickly reduce significance around that desire. You can take a 10 down to a neutral state, like five or six, which would be about perfect. Now you might have to repeat the exercise occasionally to get yourself back to neutral, but reducing that significance…

You're still going to do things today, chances are, that help you move towards your goals if you even care about them, but now you're doing it peacefully. You're thinking of it more in terms of “There's a Christmas gift under the tree and it's sitting there waiting for me and all I have to wait for is Christmas and then I get to open it.”

You're saying to yourself, “Where does this apply in music?” And there are so many situations when you start thinking about it where significance could easily enter your world.

Like, “I really need this person in my band.” How about that one? Ever felt that before? Like, “If we don't have them, then we're going to suck, and we're not going to succeed, and they need to lead the band, and they need to write the songs, and we need their help, or else things aren't just going to go that well.”

And you could be in that state, and you're trying to call them, and text them, and you can't get a hold of them. And it's like, “Man, you did your work, and if they're interested, or if things change for them, they might get back to you. But if you keep bothering them, they probably won't.”

Reducing significance, this goes for boyfriends, girlfriends too. Sometimes reducing significance… It's a good idea to go have a life, right? Enjoy yourself, post your photos to social media, go out and enjoy yourself.

You could start to say things like, “Oh, maybe having this person in my band. Even though they're so talented and skilled and great at what they do, they’ve got a bit of an ego, and I don't know if that's going to fly in this band.”

And then, your significance goes down by a couple of points. Then you go, “You know what? There are a lot of musicians out in the world. And all we need is a keyboard player. Maybe we don't need a multi-instrumentalist.” Things go down by another point.

Or how about this one? “I need this gig to pan out.” You may have many reasons, like, “I need to make rent this month some way somehow and not getting this gig is going to be bad.”

Or “I want this gig because it's going to lead to the exposure we need and then it's going to lead to the next gig, and the press opportunity, and all these other things that we've been playing and striving for and trying to get in our lives.”

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