The Pivot. The Key To A Successful Music Career.

This post is not one of those, "you can do it!" posts. Frankly, maybe you should quit. Sometimes its much wiser to stop and do something else than keep banging your head against the proverbial wall. What I hope to get you thinking about is something different than quitting. Because there is something that can be much more powerful and helpful. Iteration. Pivot.

Early in my music career, I genuinely thought I would score for film. Then I learned that it's a pretty solitary career. That, combined with the mediocre amount of talent I possess, is not a good fit. Then some friends let me mix a record for them, and then some other friends asked me to record their music. Upon a few iterations of my original idea, it felt like I had a way forward.

Starting is hard. After starting, the next tricky part is to know when to pivot—knowing when to let the original idea morph into its next iteration. There's a helpful tool to iterating, and that is honesty. The more popular colloquial is probably self-awareness. Knowing what you're good at and bad at. It is knowing what gives you energy and life and what drains you. That skill is the rudder to the ship.

We typically know what to do, right? Maybe we're afraid of the iteration staring us in the face because acting on it gets pretty scary. Then we make a creative plan, so we don't have to do that original idea we know we should do. Looking up years later and saying we're confused because we don't have clarity (my hand is raised folks). Yet, we knew the right action. We knew the correct change, but because of fear, we didn't pivot.

What pivot do you know you need to make right now? Don't think about the obstacles, but think about the truth of what you know you need to do. I'm sure your first idea was great, but the pivot will make it even better.