Thursday, April 15, 2010

No one can sing your praises if you don't hum them the tune

No one can sing your praises if you don't hum them the tune!

This is a funny little phrase that I came up with a couple of years ago, but it's stuck with me.

When I came up with this phrase, it was as a way to remind myself that it's ok to talk about what I do. In fact, it's more than ok to talk about what I do and to even be proud of it. To go even further, it's essential to doing business or making music or whatever I put my efforts into.

I've never really tried to be egotistical, though I've certainly been accused of it. It's not a matter of ego though, to have a high level of excitement about what you do. It's a sign that you have a passion for your work. So what's more natural than wanting to talk about it? To share it with the world? To scream from a mountain top that "This is what I do with my time and I'm totally and madly in love with it!"?

Let's face it, no one will pay any attention to our efforts at all if we're not proud enough of them to shine a big old spotlight on them so the world HAS to take notice.

I love what I do, I'm good at it, and I'm cheating the world if I keep it under wraps. There, I said it!

Wednesday, April 7, 2010

New look, coming soon!

As you may have noticed, I've been kinda talking a lot about business lately. Well, I guess I just realized that being an Indie musician is just as much an Entrepreneurial effort as any other small business. With that in mind, I'm going to be redesigning the blog to reflect my interest in, not only Indie music, but Independent Business as well.

Please bear with me, and stay tuned! It's an exciting time for us here at Serious Vanity Music and I hope you'll all be a part of it!

Get on with getting on with it!

Pop Quiz hot shot! What do you do when you've planned everything into the ground?

You get on with it and just do it already!

Yep, this last week has been an exercise in getting on with it. It's one thing to think about your growth potential, to talk about how you want to reach new people and make new connections, brag about how you're going to rule the freakin' world, but it's a whole other thing to just shut up and do it.

The best laid plans are nothing but scribbles on paper unless you take the steps to initiate them.

I don't know how many others may do this, but I have a tendency to analyze things to death before I act on them. I guess it's from being raised by parents who were anything but risk takers, so I like to make sure that everything is well thought out and risks are minimized before I take any leap. This isn't always the best way to be though, because I've ended up missing out on some really great opportunities because of a fear to leap.

So, I guess what I'm trying to get at, is that while it's never a good thing to leap before looking, it can be just as bad to over plan and over analyze.

Write that plan well, but then get on with getting on with it, already.