Fake It Till You Make It!

Hey Heroes,

So, we've been through how our environment impacts our mindset. We've decided to change our minds about how we're going to look at our situations. I think it's time to talk about a couple of great tactics to help us hit the mental "Reset" button so we can get on with achieving our dreams.

"One may conquer a million men in a single battle; However, the greatest and best warrior conquers himself. Conquest of one's self is the greatest victory of all." - Buddha

One thing that we have to look forward to, every day, is a fight. Yep, and epic struggle with ourselves. We are the only thing in this world that can stand in our way.

Every morning our mind tells us that we have to go to work and listen to that co-worker who's hell-bent on pointing out how we're a "lifer" with the company and we'll never take the step into the world of our dreams. Every morning our mind tells us that it's no use getting started right off, we've got an appointment in a couple of hours. Every morning our mind tells us that our back hurts a bit too much to carry that amp into the practice space. Every morning our mind tells us that no one likes our music anyway, so why make more of it? Do you know what? Our mind is absolutely right. If we listen to it.

What we're doing is rationalizing to ourselves. As one of my mentors, John Assaraf, is fond of saying, we are telling ourselves "Rational Lies". These things are only true if we accept them, because we are capable dismissing those thoughts and creating the reality that we want.

Here's where you throw out that "Bullshit!" again, and you're right. That is, unless you can convince yourself otherwise, because these tactics will never work if you don't give them an honest chance.

Our beliefs are nothing more than an established series of neural pathways in our brains that are used to firing in a certain way, but the cool thing about it is that we know that our beliefs are learned traits. Yep, that means that we can learn new beliefs, and replace the old ones. Sounds simple doesn't it. I'm not going to lie to you. It's not. In fact it's one of the hardest things I've done in my life, and it's an every....day....process.

Step one. Affirmations. Yep, there's that Stuart Smalley image coming into your head again! I can assure you that if you give this a chance you'll be amazed at how well it works, but be warned, it does take time. I think I was told that it actually takes 90 days of daily affirmation before you've created a solid, new belief. Yep, three months. This is what I call the "Fake-it till you make it" phase.

Affirmations are nothing but a series of statements that you would like to hold as beliefs. Every morning find a nice quiet place and read these, out loud to yourself, then repeat before bed. If you're really adventurous, record them in your own voice and listen to them while you work out, or drive to work, or sit in the park watching the ducks, or whatever. The point is that you need to tell yourself these things until you believe them. At first it's going to seem like you're lying to yourself, and guess what! You are!! So what? Within a few days to a week, I've found that I start asking myself, why not? Why can't I have these things? That leads to the certainty that you, in fact, can have the things in life that you want, but how?

Step two. Visualization. Yep, like I talked about last week, visualize yourself doing the things you would do if your dreams were realized. If it's playing a certain venue, close your eyes and picture yourself looking out over a sold out crowd. Visualize yourself playing your music and seeing the crowd go crazy. Use this technique after your affirmations, in the morning, and again at night.

Step three. Meditation. Despite my Buddha quote up above, I'm not advocating any religious practice here. Meditation is nothing more that clearing your mind and allowing your energy to flow. Hell, you should be doing this to facilitate songwriting anyway. Simply close your eyes and clear your mind. Pay attention to your breath. If any thoughts come up, and they will, just gently put them aside and go back to following your breath. 15 minutes to half an hour a day.

The three of these things combined will help you see that you are worthy of the things you want in life and open you up to seeing the opportunities to make those things a reality.

Try it a while and see what it does for you. If you stick with it and don't talk yourself out of it, you'll be amazed at what it can do for you.

Here's some suggested reading if you want to dive a little deeper into HOW it all works:

The Answer - John Assaraf and Murry Smith

The Success Principles - Jack Canfield

The War of Art - Steven Pressfield

Later,

The Six Letter, Four Letter Word

Hey Heroes!

This week let's take a look at "Change", and what it really means.

Last week we looked at some of the negative influences that pushed us into our current mindsets and I issued a little bit of homework. Did you really look at what you consider "Success" to be?

The first step of course is to figure out what success is to you. Some Indies I've talked with are happy if they get a decent cut of the door and have a floor to crash on before heading out to the next gig. Some still see that multi-Million dollar contract with a Major Label, complete with the private jets and diamond watches. Then there is, of course, everything in between.

What if I told you that any of it could be achieved? What if I told you that you were the only thing stopping you from achieving anything you want?

I know that some folks would say that I'm delusional. OK. One thing I know for a fact though is that everything that I have ever truly wanted, and refused to let anything or anyone interfere with, has happened. If you have in your head that the best you'll ever do is drag ass from club date to club date for a low guarantee and maybe a meal, then my friend, that is all you'll ever accomplish.

The other side of it's true as well. The Major Labels are full of acts that, talent wise, are nowhere near the caliber of a lot of Indie bands I've seen, but they got exactly where they were going, because they believed that they could and refused to hear anything to the contrary. Think I'm full of shit? OK. Take a look at the next MTV music awards though and tell me how much true talent you see there. What you're seeing isn't the best that music has to offer, what you're seeing are the ones that were the most driven to succeed.

What I'm saying is that only you have the ability to dream your dreams. Only you have the power to achieve those dreams. In contrast, only YOU have the power to kill those dreams, it's up to you.

In Quantum Physics there are two Laws that apply themselves to this situation.

First is the Law Of Relativity. The Law Of Relativity says that your situation is only what it is, as compared to something else. Meaning that, you are only poor as compared to that guy that has thousands of dollars in his account, and likewise, you are rich compared to the guy whose sleeping in a cardboard box under the overpass. Remember this when you're evaluating your situation. Too often we only look at how bad off we are and seldom do we look at our successes.

Second is the Law Of Attraction. The Law Of Attraction says that what you think about most you attract to yourself. This means that if you worry about your money problems, you're attracting more money problems. Likewise, if you're focused in on, and constantly visualizing the success you want, you will start attracting that success to you.

I know, this is where you check out and say "what a bunch of airy-fairy bullshit!". I hear ya, just hear me out.

Let me explain how this works. Have you ever focused on something so hard that you realize that that object suddenly appears everywhere? Example. You've always wanted a goldtop Les Paul. You think about them every day. You can see yourself on stage wailing away on one. It's your greatest goal and your biggest dream. Have you noticed that they keep popping up at shows, in magazines, hanging on the wall at the pawn shop or guitar store you run into a couple of times a week looking? It's not that they've become more plentiful, it's that by focusing so much on them you've retrained your subconscious mind to seek them out.

It works that way for anything, so use it to your advantage. Get a clear mental picture of where you want to go in your musical career. Picture it down to the shirt on your back and sweat on your nose. Hold that image. Visualize it. Love it. Let it go. Don't think about it, just wait for the opportunities to get you heading in the right direction to start appearing and take advantage of them. Repeat the process every morning.

Most importantly, be clear about what you want, and don't let anyone tell you it can't be done. Once you let doubt in, you've got to regroup and get back on track.

It's all on you. It's you're responsibility. Only you can decide to change your mind.

The Effects of Negative Input

Hey all,

As I said last week, my topic for today is the negative input that we are subjected to on a daily basis.

It's my contention that from a young age we are inundated with negativity. In fact, it's become a Social norm and I don't really think that anyone thinks anything of it. The reason for that is that it's super easy to rationalize the tactic as a benefit. Let me explain what I mean by that.

Parents feel that it's their responsibility to shield us from the hurtful things in life. It's instilled in all of us that our children are the most important things in our lives and must be protected. It's mandated by Society and Church, and it upheld by the Law, but it's also a broad and sweeping demand of people who really have no idea of what it truly means. One of my favorite sayings is "Babies don't come with instructions!", and it's true. This leads most parents to rely on the example their parents set, whether right or wrong.

When you decided to be a musician, were you encouraged to run with it and be the best you could be? Were you, like me, discouraged, or encouraged to "make sure you have a back up plan, because you really can't make a living being a musician"? I think the answer is pretty telling seeing the relative small numbers of "Successful" musicians in the world as compared to the number of bands beating themselves up in small clubs and bars every night for free drinks and cut of the door. But Mom and Dad did their job, they planted that seed in your subconscious that said "I'm going to have to have a back-up plan, because I'm not going to be able to support myself with music alone". Did they mean to? I'd say in most cases, no. Most parents truly do want what is best for their kids and don't realize the harm they're causing.

Parents aren't the only well meaning negative influences though. Our friends, our band mates, our teachers, our....................................yeah, you get the point.

So, what does this do to us? Well, I guess that depends on our mindset. Do we have the single-minded determination to pursue our dreams at any cost? Are we willing to find new friends, fire band mates, and limit time spent with family? Are we willing to find tools to help "re-train" the brain into positive and beneficial thinking? Are we really ready to start working for what we want? Or, is that just too much to ask of ourselves?

Take a little bit of time and really challenge what you think about success and see if you're working on negativity or if you're really positive you can make it. Next week I'm going to talk a little bit about making the commitment to changing you're mind about what success means.

Later,

It's a new day!

Hey all!

I've been doing some thinking since my last post and I think that I've nailed down where I want to take this blog.

Something that I've struggled with for years, is Mindset. Being in a solid, positive, motivated, and open mindset, is the key to being able to proceed in life with confidence and certainty, and it's up to us to make sure that we are in that mindset.

Society has become geared to work against us in this process. From an early age we are taught the kinds of limiting beliefs that form the basis of our belief structures.

"We don't have enough money for that."

" Money doesn't grow on trees."

"It's a tough industry, maybe you ought to think about a backup plan. Just in case."

"You can't make any money as a musician!"

Heard any of those? I thought so.

Well, in the next few posts I'm going to talk about some of the tactics and techniques that I'm using to erase and re-record those mental tapes. Maybe they'll help you as well. I hope so anyway. : )

I'm going to call this series "Exploring the Power of Affirmations". Now, before you start fixating on that mental image of Stuart Smalley, the old SNL character, do us both a favor and keep an open mind. This is a technique used by professional musicians and athletes every day.

In the first installment, I want to discuss The Effects of Negative Input.

In part two we'll go over Taking The Step of making the conscious decision to change your beliefs about success.

In part three we'll tackle how to Fake It Till You Make It.

In part four we'll wrap it up with Discovering Your Faith. And no, I'm not going to be breaking out any one's "Good Book" to try and convert you, though I may use some quotes from various religious texts to illustrate that this principle has been used world wide and over the span of history, by some of the greatest people to have ever graced the planet.

So, if you're still with me, join me next week and we'll start exorcising those limiting beliefs so that we can get on with getting on.



Later,

Beware The Undertow!!

It's funny how you can set out with a really great agenda, I don't know, something like just do a weekly update about the state of the music industry and what it means to Indie musicians, maybe. Then you get out in the deep water of it and the undertow just sucks you under and you resurface ten miles down river. I hate swimming.

This week EMI did something. They're still fighting Pirates in some bay in Sweden. Bob Lefsetz is still trying to save face from his thrashing at the hands of Gene Simmons. Metallica, the gods of Thrash Metal and fan abuse, are being inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Iggy Pop is getting older while, for some odd reason, Paul McCartney is getting younger. Chris Brown and Rhianna have gotten back together and are singing about it. Diddy continues to be on the right side of awesome. And last, but certainly not least Britney's p&%*y is hanging out. However that happens.

Yep, stuff keeps happening in the music world, but this week only one thing really stood out to me as REALLY cool. The members of Blur reunited for SXSW. How cool is that?

The thing I like about Blur is that every member of that band seems to personify the passion of music making. It exudes from their albums, and you can hear every laugh, every tear, and every bit of tension that took place in the making of it.

That bit of news this week was the branch overhanging the river for me to grab onto and pull myself out of that mess a couple paragraphs back. It was also the mirror to remind me of why it is that I love making music so much.

So, I've been doing some thinking. I really appreciate the feedback that I've gotten from some of you and hope to continue that relationship, but I felt the need to start guiding this blog in the direction of more of a chronicle of the time I spend in the studio making music. After all, isn't that what we're all about? I hope you all continue on with me, but I understand if you decide not to.

Love and Rock n Roll!

Paul

Couldn't have said it better myself.

In the end, isn't this really what it's all about?

http://blog.copyrightalliance.org/2009/03/what-copyright-means-to-me/

Ah, the 360 to save the day.

So the Majors have a backup plan, good for them. If I'm getting this right, the plan is to wait until all of their acts are contracted under 360 deals and then they will help force the demise of the CD and fully embrace a free file share market, making all of their revenue.........................whatever.

It's plain and simple. For the time being, it's more lucrative for the Majors to sue the innovators than it is to be the innovators. When it gets to the point where it's more lucrative for them to embrace the innovation, then that's what they plan to do. It's business, they go where the money is.

So, what does all this have to do with us Indies? Probably not much. I mean, we're all free. We have the ability to build our own plan, to embrace whatever technology we choose. We can build an entire following in Second Life if we want. We can tour relentlessly, or we can couple with other media. The fact is that true freedom means that no one can change your mind. So, as long as you have a vision and pursue it to it's fullest, you'll be as much of a success as you want to be.

http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/03/08/big-music-will-surrender-but-not-until-at-least-2011/

Later,