Creativity Excitement Emotion

Sometimes there is no logic to the way people treat you. You could pay less for better service. You could pay more for lesser service. And what you end up with isn’t always predictable going in. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David elaborates on the rental drama that recently unfolded in his life. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Being treated worse for more money 01:34 – Blood, sweat, and tears 02:17 – All feelings, no logic 03:10 – Paying back kindness with cruelty Transcript: Something that occurred to me about my ridiculous rental situation... I realized that I was staying in Abbotsford for about two years, paying, I think it was $800 or $900 a month. It certainly wasn't a whole lot more than that. And I was treated way better there than paying $1,350 at a friend's house in Vancouver. Like, how does this even add up? Simple math says I should be treated just as well, if not better. And yet, on some level, I think there's miscommunication, or communication that needs to happen that's not happening. “We need you to be out of here in two weeks.” Now, we have no formal written agreement. So, it's not a situation where I can go back to them and be like, “Yeah, two weeks is not enough.” I've pleaded my case already. I've already made my case. I said, “Even if I happen to find a place tomorrow and send in my application, and I'm approved, it's very unlikely that I'll be able to move in after two weeks,” and I was met with a dead stare. So, that kind of tells me everything. They're clueless. They have no idea what's going on. Maybe they think I'm lucky, for being able to move from place to place. Yeah, lucky, sure. You try working your ass off for 10 years or longer to get to this point and build something from nothing. Something that you must put your blood, sweat, tears, and effort into every single day to build. All I can say is “Good luck with that.” Because most people don't do it. Honestly, all I can think is they just want to be more buddy-buddy with me or something. They're expecting way more communication than I'm giving. Even though they could just as easily, come down, knock on my door, and say “Hi.” See what's going on and ask about my life, which they don't do. So, at the end of the day, it just seems to me it's all about feelings. It has nothing to do with logic. Like, if someone was paying me $1,350 per month, and they were living in my basement, and they were quiet and clean, Sure, maybe I'd worry a little bit and check up on them every once in a while and see if they're okay. But aside from that, I would let them be. I would let them live their life. I wouldn't worry too much about their habits as long as they're not completely out to lunch. And it's like, “Man, we all miss a meal now and again. We all miss a shower now and again.” But just because I'm not always eating at home or not always showering at home, it doesn't necessarily mean that I'm not doing those things. I want to ask, like, “Do I look dirty and unhealthy?” Because I don't. Not even a little bit. So, this is what you get for being respectful of others. They pay back your kindness with, “Yeah, you can't be here. We don't like you.” Like I said, I think something is missing in communication. I'm not getting something they're saying, and they're not getting something I'm saying. They're just basing everything off things I've done or not done, not based on any communication or conversation that's been had. All I can say is “Good luck with that,” because I know we're human, but if you make all your decisions based on, “I don’t want to talk to them.” Sometimes, you’ve got to take the initiative and have those conversations, especially if something’s missing for you. For someone who's supposed to be a leader, all I can say is “Good luck.” Good luck. If you make all your decisions about your team based on your feelings, you're going to mess it up good.

Life is unfortunately full of unequal exchanges. You give more than you get. Or you get more than you give. Over the long haul, these types of exchanges always tend to balance out. But the process the universe uses to balance things can occur as chaotic. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares his experience with unequal exchanges. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Treat others as you would like to be treated 01:36 – Enduring hell 02:46 – You can control what you say, not what others feel Transcript: The golden rule is “Treat others as you would like to be treated.” So, for as long as I can remember, I've always treated others with kindness and respect and understanding and given them plenty of space. Even if they get angry, even if they're weird people, they'd usually get a second and maybe even a third or fourth chance with me. As things went on and I got taken advantage of and didn't want to be a doormat anymore, I decided that I couldn’t be that kind or that giving. I couldn’t be that respectful of everyone. Because the reality is a lot of people just don't deserve it. But those seeds were planted. And I'm still a kind person. I try to treat people with respect and treat them the way that I would like to be treated as much as possible. So, I'm not just thinking about me and my convenience. If it's about me and my safety, that's a whole other fucking matter. I will get out of a situation as quickly as I possibly can if it's about my safety, and I've had to do that. But if it's not a matter of safety, I'm the gentlest giant you're going to find. And I'm not that big. 6'1”, 6'2” is tall, but I'm not huge. I'm not Michael Jordan. I'm not an NBA star. And so, when I think about the way that I've been treated – and I'm not referring to my friends – but when I think about the way I've been treated in the last year plus… In a situation where I can't find a fucking home or I'm having to go from place to place, at times paying for exorbitant Airbnb fees, trying to figure out what the fuck I'm going to do next, working my ass off every single week to make sure that an income comes in so I can sustain some kind of lifestyle. Have I been treated all that well? I mean, it's human to look at the situation and evidence for all the reasons why people didn't treat you with respect. I could do that, and I'm sure I could find a bunch. But the reality is I haven't been treated badly by everyone. But some of the most disappointing ones are the ones that should know better, in my opinion. But they do say that when crimes occur, it’s usually someone you know. It's more likely to be someone you know stealing from you, taking from you, or doing things to your property than someone you don't know. And it's just like, “I may have made you feel a certain way, but you have to take responsibility for how you feel.” It doesn't work the other way. You can't put that on me. I can control what I say, but I can't control how you interpret it and how you feel about it as much as I might want to. So, if something is going on, man, come to me first, and let's have a conversation. Seriously. Don't just go assuming things. Don't just go and make plans of your own. I'm a safe guy. I'm not going to do anything to you. But if it's something concerning my living situation or my lifestyle, come and talk to me first. Jesus Christ.

The entertainment industry isn’t interested in taking any chances. They only want to work with entertainers who have a proven track record. They only want to bank on ideas that have already enjoyed success. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David considers the future of the music business. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Disappointing meal at Barcelos 00:34 – Covers of Top 40 songs 01:02 – It’s not a crime to record covers 01:22 – Where things have been going in the film industry 01:40 – Gambling on the unproven 01:50 – How sad would it be? 02:04 – Adding insult to injury Transcript: So, I was at Barcello's having a mediocre dinner. It wasn't terrible, I guess, but it wasn't the best either. I've had very good meals there before, so by contrast, I was a little disappointed. I had a chicken sandwich. I guess it was okay. Anyway, on their sound system, they have this music playing and it's covers of very popular tunes from the last 10, 20 years or so, and it's this female singer. It's just one cover after another of Maroon 5, Linkin Park, Katy Perry, and who knows what else? I couldn't even identify all of them, but I recognize the songs because they’re all Top 40. I'm sitting there thinking to myself, “Is this the direction the music business is going in?” Recording covers is not a crime. Many of us were inspired by different artists and when we pay tribute to them, I think most of us are very sincere. But with the business side of things, it could move in that direction. Think of movies. In recent movies, they don't take chances. It’s like, “Let's make a sequel” or “Let's make something with the same storyline from so and so or a very similar plotline from this other movie.” And very rarely do they take risks on anything else that's not proven. Of course, the music industry has kind of been that way for a long time, as far as the artists that they sign go. Unless it's a proven concept, they're not going to work with them. But I mean, how sad would that be? Like, do you want to be listening to the hits of the 2020s, 2010s, 2000s, and the 90s for the rest of your life? Yeah. I don't know. It wouldn't be much fun. To add insult to injury, these are pop songs being covered in a pop genre. Like there's no change. Maybe there's a little bit of an electronic or atmospheric, vocal trance-type quality to it. But aside from that, it's the same thing we've heard just with a female voice. There was one song, I think it happened in recent history where a song took the hook of, “Blue (Da Ba Dee),” which was never a great song to begin with, but whatever. And they're covering that. So, I'm sitting here going, “You're covering a derivative work, a hook from a song from the 90s that was taken and put into a modern song, which you're now covering.” I just thought like, “Wow, the level of meta here has reached a new level.” And then the most hilarious thing was listening to her rendition of Linkin Park's “In the End.” She's singing just Chester's parts. In other words, Mike Shinoda's rap is completely absent. And I'm like, “This may as well be a karaoke track.” This is so cheesy. You forgot to put the rap in, or you just decided it didn't need to go there. You could have vocalized it. You could have come up with some creative way. Instead, you just ignored it completely and only sang Chester's part.

Things don’t always work out with significant others, landlords, partners, investors, bandmates, or otherwise. It can be devastating, and figuring out your next move can be tough. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David vulnerably shares about a rental situation gone wrong. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Raw emotions 01:00 – “You’ve got two weeks” 01:28 – Trying to find a place in Vancouver 02:38 – Taking responsibility for the role you played in dysfunction 03:40 – Somehow, it will all work out Transcript: All right, so I'm going to talk about this while my emotions are still raw. And this is not something I used to do, but I think nowadays I'm realizing it's okay to complain. It's okay to react to life. It's okay to vent and rant sometimes. Assuming you come back to that place of understanding or realizing that everything's going to be okay, something's going to come up, it's all going to work out, and an opportunity will show up. If you believe that it must happen, right? But in the meantime, I'm like, this is bullshit. That's why I'm going to share while I'm still raw because I know that's going to be more relatable than me waiting for later to collect my head and think about what I'm saying. So, I've been staying with this lady now for about six weeks in her basement and it's been fine. I stayed with her last year too, so like, obviously that generosity has been super appreciated, and I've communicated that to her, and I'm paying rent. Pretty normal rates to stay there. So, it's not like there's no benefit in it for her, but she came down and told me today that, I've got two weeks to stay there. It's not like I was going to stay there forever, and I knew I'd have to move on and find something else. And at the same time, it's like, “Could you give me more than two weeks to figure out where I might be going?” It's September, we're almost in October here. I think October starts tomorrow or Monday, but Vancouver is nuts. The rental market, the housing market in general, is insane. So, in September, people have just settled in, and there is nothing. I guess you can find the occasional apartment for a bazillion bucks or whatever, but what in the world? Why would you think that there's still something out there right now? I probably need to wait until after December, the way that things have been filling up this year, to have any chance of finding anything that's within my price range. And I wouldn't even say price range. Moreso what I think is reasonable. Some people might be okay renting a closet for $2,000 and a police check. And I'm not willing to do that, right? You’re going to have to do a little bit better than that for me. I understand. It's maybe not a buyer's market as much as it is a renter's market, but give me something here, please. Anyway, the message is delivered, and I’ve got to be out of there. Of course, I can take responsibility for the part that I played in this whole thing, which is that I agreed to stay there in the first place. Could I have explored other options before staying at her place? Yes. Could I have maybe communicated some things about my life, what I'm up to, and the things that are going on in my life before staying there? Yes. So, there hasn't been a lot of communication, and I can take responsibility for that part. But I don't know, I think she just wants to be buddy-buddy or something like that. She has a whole world going on that I don't know anything about and I have a whole world that she knows nothing about, and no part of that's been communicated. Leaders take responsibility for the lack of communication.Share on X So, it's one of those things where it's a two-way street, right? There's no power in thinking of it in terms of a two-way street, but neither of us has taken many steps to interact and communicate with each other on this whole matter. And even though she said, “This whole space is yours,” sometimes I don't feel like it is. So, whatever the case, it's not the place to be, and I know it's going to work out for me, but the whole situation is just stupid. Like, if she wanted me out by the second week of October to begin with, then why not just tell me that, so I can adjust and make plans? Now I've got two weeks to try to figure something out. It's just nuts.

So, you’re looking to climb your social media mountain. But you’re not sure where to start. What should you do? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares the exact steps you can take to get started, stay started, and find your footing on social networks. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Figuring out the social media landscape for the first time 00:50 – Determining the right course of action 01:39 – Pick a channel you like 02:52 – Make a daily video 03:37 – Share your stories 04:01 – Covering off the technical details 04:42 – The benefits of posting daily 07:03 – Social media strategy summary Transcript: I was talking with someone who was trying to figure out the social media landscape for the first time. She's in the skincare business, and she wanted to attract people from all over the world to her content because she was convinced, or rather she knew, that she could make a difference for people. This is one of those questions where… What do you say to someone completely new to all this? Someone who wants to attract attention and knows that there's a way to do it but hasn't gotten started with the process? And I thought about that for a moment, and my mind immediately turned to all these great tools and content distribution and taking advantage of Fiverr. And I'm like, “I don't think that's what a beginner needs to know.” That's just too much. It's overwhelming. People make this mistake all the time. They try hard to create a presence on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok, and on and on. And that's where people get scattered. That's usually the first mistake. Down the line, yeah, try to post everywhere. But when you're first getting started, when you don't even have a team helping you, it just doesn't work. It’s a tremendous amount of effort. Plus you always tend to find more resonance on one or two channels versus all of them. The first mistake in social media is trying to be everywhere at once.Share on X The advice that I gave was “Pick a channel. The one that you like.” And the reason I say that is because beginners aren't knowledgeable about secondary channels. They don't know about Rumble and Odysee. They've heard of YouTube and TikTok. Those are the ones they know. And those are the safe ones. They have a significant user base. And people sometimes go “I need to grow my audiences” and I say, “Yeah, true, but if you pick one of those, you're safe. For example, you can't go wrong with YouTube or Facebook. I get that Facebook is not the cool kid on the block anymore. And some kids are like, “Yeah, it's only for old people.” Yeah. Sorry to tell you though, Facebook still has the largest user base of any social network out there. And as other countries come online that haven't already, sorry to say, I think that's the first place people are going to be crowding. So, Facebook is not out of the game in any way, shape, or form yet. I'm not a big fan of it or anything, but let's face facts. Secondly, I said, “Commit to posting a video on one channel, just one, choose one, every single day.” And I think it took her a while to get this, but eventually, she was like, “Okay, so that's like brushing your teeth every day. I don't necessarily feel like it, but it's a good idea and it's a discipline and I do it every day anyway.” Publishing daily is like brushing your teeth. It's a good habit to get into.Share on X And I said, “Yeah, it's kind of like that.” Not that you want to make it hard on yourself. Like, you don't want to hate posting to social media every day. But there are days when you might hate yourself, right? Especially when you're like, “I’ve got to make a video again, and I'm going to talk about something again.” By and large, you don't want to make it difficult on yourself. This is why the next thing I said was, “What you want to do is show up and share stories”. Notice how I'm sharing a story right now. I'm talking about something that just happened moments ago. I was on a phone call with this lady. You want to tell stories in your videos, and you want to keep it to about a minute or two minutes, and you want to film it all on your iPhone or your Android phone. That is good enough nowadays. That also minimizes the time you spend in editing, which will help you. Minimize time spent posting and coming up with captions for social media and stuff like that, too. Of course, you could spend an infinite amount of time looking at hashtags and headlines and all that kind of stuff. But the quickest way is to set aside a few minutes in your day to grab your phone, film a video for a minute or two, and transfer it over to your computer. Or if you prefer to e

Spending can easily get out of control, even if it is spending on seemingly helpful, worthwhile tools and resources. Sometimes it’s necessary to cut back. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how cutting your subscription bloat can free up energy. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Cutting costs is often a necessary aspect of business 00:38 – When pride gets in the way 01:12 – Successful entrepreneurs are willing to cut expenses if necessary 01:38 – A time to reevaluate 02:07 – Giving up pride 02:47 – Cutting costs will free up energy 03:34 – A helpful app 04:02 – Get good at managing your finances Transcript: Entrepreneurs sometimes must cut costs. If this weren't true… Just look at the big businesses out there that sometimes lay off employees in droves. Sometimes for a business to survive, it's got to cut away at the fat to be able to survive. But sometimes it is so easy to fall into a sense of pride, like, “I know what I'm doing, things are okay. I don't need to cut costs. I just need to be more consistent and make more money.” And, I mean, how many times have I or someone else or people in general thought that way that they could just go and make more money and solve all their problems? It's partly right. But many have had that experience where they weren't able to generate that amount and found themselves treading water because their income stayed about the same. Their expenses also stayed about the same or just went up. But if you think about the fact that successful people are those who are willing to do what others are not willing to do, that means successful entrepreneurs are willing to cut expenses, even if temporarily, if need be. Now I've heard people do insane things just to be able to meet payroll at times. I think in those cases it pretty much paid off, but I don't know how much I could recommend being reckless in that sense. But I do think there's a time and place to evaluate your finances. Look at all the subscriptions that have stacked up. Do you need those right now? Are those contributing to you? Are they helping you make more money or are they just eating away at cash reserves? As someone who's had to file for a consumer proposal, I can tell you that it is possible for those to keep eating away at your cash reserves to put you into debt. Subscriptions may seem harmless, but they can add up and even put you into debt.Share on X So, we must give up pride. And I say that as if it's always an easy thing to do and it can be hard at times. It’s like, “Oh, I know what to do. I've got the Midas touch, man. I've got the golden finger. Everything's going to work out.” Well, sometimes it doesn't. And we can have a bias towards our success and that's a good thing, but sometimes we can go from success to success to success and suddenly encounter failure and go, “Well, that was the anomaly.” But the reality is that it's usually a mix of failures and successes on the way to your eventual success. And I think this is what I recognized about cutting expenses. What it does is it frees up energy. And this is something I noticed this last time I went and cut a few costs that were idle and not doing anything for me. When you trim away the fat, you don't have to think about it anymore. Cutting expenses frees up energy.Share on X Then you can free up yourself and free up your mind to concentrate on ways that you can improve your financial outlook and improve your income. And what matters is your takeaway or your profit, right? So, if you haven't done some purging recently and things don't appear to be going well, it might be time to explore purging to look at what you can do to cut away some expenses that aren't serving you. And while I'm not sponsored by them or anything, maybe I should be. This app is primarily serving U.S. customers, but there are apps like Rocket Money that will help you identify your monthly subscriptions. All you've got to do is connect your bank account and it will start to populate all the things that you're sinking money into each month and then you can choose the ones that you don't want to keep anymore. I think this is a freaking great idea. We need that in Canada as well. But app or no app, get good at either creating a document or a ledger or spreadsheet with all the things that you're spending on, so you know exactly what you can cut, or you're pretty much stuck with having to do the process completely manually, which may not be that painful, but you do usually requires you having to dig into your bank account and figure out your monthly costs.

You may begin your journey thinking to yourself, “This the band that’s going to make it!” But as with so many other things in life, the vehicle you started with may not be the one that gets you to where you want to go (and of course, this can be LITERALLY and FIGURATIVELY true!). In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David expands on the importance of persistence and iteration. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – The vehicle you started with may not be the vehicle that gets you there 01:18 – There’s nothing wrong with the dream 01:53 – Be flexible 02:27 – David’s experience 03:18 – The power of iteration Transcript: I think I've written and even spoken on this before, but it hit me today in a new way. And that is that the vehicle that you started with may not be the vehicle that gets you there. And the reason that's the case is because your dream has nothing to do with the vehicle. Your dream and the vehicle that gets you there aren't mutually inclusive.Share on X You may want certain things such as the ability or the opportunity to play in front of thousands or tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of people. You may want financial independence. You may want the ability to travel anywhere, anytime, and work from anywhere. You may want to write songs. For other artists, maybe it’s being known as a great songwriter. So, that's the dream. That's the grand vision, but whatever vehicle you might be using to get there right now, it might be a band. It might be a specific project. It might be your solo performances or your solo project. That may not be the vehicle to get you there. And this is the thing that I think we struggle with. It's like, “Okay, our dreams are not reality because our chosen vehicle, our band, our project, our solo project, whatever it is that we're working hard on, isn't getting us to where we want to go.” So, when our project fails or doesn't capture people in the way that we think it should, we give up. Then we make the dream wrong, but there's nothing wrong with the dream. Your dream is attainable, and you don't want to let anyone, including yourself, steal your dream, right? The dream is attainable, but we must be flexible in what vehicle we choose to get there with. There could be a different avenue. There might be a different project. There might be a different band. You might have to start releasing music on your website. There might be things that you're not doing right now that are going to lead to the results you want. So, I think where most people give up is they give up because the vehicle they've chosen didn't work, wasn't working, or they can't find a way to make it work. I've launched a few vehicles for teaching and sharing my experiences about the music industry, and the music business. Some things I've been able to accomplish as an author, as an artist, as a composer, and so forth. And look, the reality is some of those just didn't work out. Maybe some of them generated traffic, but no money. Some of them generated money, but no traffic. Not that all that is problematic. It's just a matter of, “This vehicle that I've chosen, for whatever reason, is not quite resonating in the way that I'd hoped.” And that's because of the things we create, we must focus on our audience as well. We can't just be thinking about ourselves. And what would audiences want? What would they want to hear? What would they want to see? What would they want to learn? What would they like to check out? And we’ve got to be thinking about that too. Therein lies the power of iteration. So, if something kind of works, but not quite, make some subtle changes and try again, right? And keep trying and keep iterating and keep trying. This is what comedians do. I'm not sure if you've heard of this before, but comedians who kill it don't just show up at a bar and give a bunch of jokes and everybody laughs and every joke's a winner. It doesn't work that way. They head out to the dive bars, and they test 10 jokes and maybe one out of those 10 jokes lands with people. They save one joke, and they delete the other nine. Then they repeat this process over and over. They keep going back to the bar, and maybe two more jokes land. Now they have three. They delete the other seven, create seven more jokes, go back to the bar, and test them all over again. Maybe they get another one or two. They keep going back until they have five, until they have seven, until they have eight, and until they have 10. And that's when they're ready to hit the big stages. Because they know they've got 10 jokes that are going to land with people. And we must think about our music that way too. You might

There is nothing wrong with personal achievement. But you can’t necessarily equate your accomplishments with serving the world. And unless you’re serving the world, your successes could end up feeling very empty. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David breaks down the three types of motives and the results one can expect from each, as well as what he learned from blink-182’s Tom DeLonge. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Deeper realizations 01:12 – Doing things for personal gain 02:20 – Selfish gains quickly crumble 03:10 – Three types of motives 06:04 – Serving the masses (what you can learn from blink-182) 07:40 – See your projects through this lens Transcript: There is something I recently found that kind of gave me pause around the whole constant “Go, go, go, push more, publish more, always be productive, get more done” side of things. And surprisingly it had nothing to do with health. Although, of course, health is important. And I came back from Calgary with eye floaters. I’m doing what I can to reduce them by cleansing and cleaning up my diet and it seems to be helping. But this insight didn't come from some kind of health scare or anything else. It came from some personal development work that I've been doing, and as you know I'm constantly reading and listening to things at this point. It's like there's only deeper realizations in a way. You're not going to discover something completely new for the first time by the time you've read several hundred books and read thousands of articles and listened to thousands of podcasts and been through various personal development programs. But the essence of what I heard was this… and again, it's not something revolutionary or completely new. I've probably read or heard or seen stuff like this dozens of times, and yet this time it hit me square between the eyes and that was this. When you do things for personal gain and selfish reasons, even the successes you do get, and you can get successes being selfish… even the successes you do get tend to crumble or be taken away or is stolen from you. True success is not based on personal gains alone.Share on X I've had some successes that were like that. I just couldn't quite figure it out. It's like I accomplished all this, but suddenly something appears to distract from that success or detract from that success. Or the success itself just doesn't seem meaningful to anyone but me. Like, it makes no difference whatsoever in the eyes of the people that I'm supposed to be serving and care about most, and I couldn't quite make sense of that. But I've started to have some growing awareness around this more recently as I've been diving into some, personal development material. So, first and foremost, success earned through selfish means or for done for personal profit or selfish gain tends to crumble. These successes don't last. They're not meaningful. And the things we do to benefit those around us, like our team members or collaborators or partners or employees, and the things we do to benefit customers… You might remember me talking about win-win-win before and that's in line with us. We want to create a win-win-win situation where there's something in it for everyone. Like there's something everyone cares about. And that made me go like, “Yeah, I love creating things. And on the other hand, I feel like it's okay to kind of slow down and look at what it is I'm doing.” And I think there's sort of three broader categories as I think about it. The first one is something that's done completely out of selfishness. You know that there's a gain in it, you know that there's a credibility or authority boost, or you might be awarded or credited in some way, and you do it because of that. And of course, I've done stuff like that. And then, the second category is stuff that you just do for fun. You ever notice how sometimes, you go and work on a fun side project that has nothing to do with your main one, and suddenly it takes off? You're not the only one. This has happened to many people. The things you do for fun, it's almost like people get to join in and be a part of the inside joke. And then, the third category is I don't want to call it “philanthropic,” but it's doing something for humanity, right? Your products and services in some way, shape, or form benefits humanity. Lots of people hate McDonald's, and lots of people hate Starbucks, but they are adding value to society in some way, shape, or form. That's why they're valuable and that's why they're successful because, at some level, they're valuable. There is a win and it's not just a win for the person

Things will happen in life. That’s a given. But it would be unwise to ignore the fact that some of the greatest opportunities were created in times of great adversity. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David clears a pathway to help us discern when a specific situation is adversity or an opportunity. Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Things you need to do but don’t necessarily want to do 01:08 – When opportunity is confronting 02:12 – Examining lack of motivation 04:50 – You are what you do 06:29 – Adversity or opportunity? Transcript: Coming soon.

Chasing shiny objects and pursuing trends is human. You see one person succeed on one platform, and suddenly you start thinking to yourself, “Wait, why am I not doing THAT?” Yet most artists don’t have a plan beyond posting more content. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why posting alone won’t get you anywhere. Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Talking to musicians about what they’re doing to market themselves 00:43 – What is your strategy? 01:03 – Where to post 01:54 – Building on rented land with a plan 02:59 – Bringing intentionality to the process Transcript: Coming soon.

You see a highway. You decide to take it. It may be the only road you can take to get to where you want to go. But what if there was a way to build an entirely new highway? And what if that new highway ended up becoming the better opportunity? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how this analogy carries into building a successful artistic career. Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Driving through high mountain roads 00:26 – The state of Highway 1 02:35 – Driving 50 km out of the way 02:50 – Why not build another highway? 04:03 – How this applies to building a music career 06:55 – Different ways of solving a problem Transcript: Coming soon.

How you express yourself matters. What you say and what you don’t say are both important. In creating the life you love and in interacting with others, you must be thoughtful and deliberate in your communication. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how language can make a big difference in communication with others, setting goals, and even manifesting desires. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – The difference language makes 00:45 – If we fail to express, we don’t get anything we want 01:19 – Should you go into every conversation with an agenda? 02:54 – Investing in a music industry startup 04:20 – How your brain interprets language 05:21 – “All good” vs. “No problem” 06:17 – Developing good habits 07:07 – Communication is about what others hear 07:51 – What to do when you’re feeling horrible 09:32 – Pay attention to the double negatives Transcript: So, this one is going to be titled “The Strange Double Negatives That Might be Tripping You Up” or something along those lines. And this is all about language. It may seem insignificant in the grand scheme of things, what I'm about to share with you, and yet, if we were to look at how everything is in language, everything is in communication, whatever we express is just as important as what we don't express. But if we don't express anything, we don't get anything we want. And that's where sharing comes in. We must share our vision with others, not so that we sabotage ourselves or our goals, but more so that sharing creates momentum. If we don't express anything, we don't get anything we want.Share on X You just never know when sharing your idea with someone might help you find an investor or a collaborator or someone who's going to help and support you. Now, do we go into conversations with an agenda all the time? My feeling is no. It sounds strange and I think there's a time and place to go into a conversation prepared to request because so often we're just scared of making requests, and if we realized the power that we had and the requests that people would agree to, or at least counter, we would make way more requests than we do. What I do believe in is having an intention for every conversation. What is going to be talked about? Have an intention for every conversation.Share on X Why would you go into a conversation with no intention? That is my question to you. Going into a conversation with no intention is for fun. That's not going to move your career forward. That's not going to move your business forward. And in fact, chances are it's not going to move your relationships forward. You might decide in the spur of the moment to go watch a movie or have a barbecue with friends. And obviously, that's valuable time. But open-ended conversations about nothing with no intention tend not to move anywhere. They're fine for entertainment, they're fine for your spare time, they're fine for relationship building with friends and people that you're getting to know. But they don't work for business-oriented conversations, career-oriented conversations, or opportunity-oriented conversations, that's where you want to bring intention to what you say, as well as what you don't say. Many years ago, I was invested in a music industry startup, and I was brought on as a part-time digital marketer to help spread the word about that company. I had a fair bit of success as far as blogging and social media were concerned. It was kind of the earlier days of social media if you will, maybe not MySpace or Friendster. That was kind of going out of style, but Google+ was still around at the time. So, that might give you an idea. I remember they brought on another guy… multiple contractors were brought on, but we started getting into calls and meetings and communicating with each other. So, there was this one guy that they brought on as a contractor and we had conversations here and there because we were sort of in the same department. I can't remember exactly what it is he brought to the table. It might've been customer service or some other form of marketing that I wasn't doing. But essentially it was, he heard me say the phrase “No problem.” The funny thing about “no problem,” is if you stop and look at it, it's a double negative. So, he pointed this out to me. And at the time I was like, “Dude, we're kind of splitting hairs here, aren't we? Like it's a double negative. Doesn't that make it a positive?” That’s the way math is supposed to work, but in language, it doesn't. And the reason for that is how our minds or brains interpret language. It doesn't hear qualifiers. This is the problem with most people's goals, most people's desires,

You may start a new project thinking it’s your main thing. But other people don’t necessarily see it that way. Not that perception is everything, but getting an outside perspective can sometimes be very enlightening. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares a couple of conversations that he found very helpful. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Music Entrepreneur HQ is dying… 00:33 – A new perspective 01:24 – “You’re not fully self-expressed without music” 02:13 – “Just let me do my thing…” 03:22 – Maybe it was a side hustle after all Transcript: I recently told my mentor, “Music Entrepreneur HQ is dying.” He said, “That's the first time I've ever heard you say that. I know you've had some ups and downs and some struggles, but this is the first time I've ever heard you say that it was dying.” But he said something interesting, which was, “The way I looked at it – maybe you didn't feel this way and you felt like Music Entrepreneur HQ was your core thing – I always felt like there’s David Andrew Wiebe, and then there’s this side thing he does at Music Entrepreneur HQ. And I was like, “Huh. I never quite thought of it that way,” but maybe it was one of those situations where I set myself a layer back. And that wasn't always a bad thing. Sometimes I was overwhelmed with emails that I simply could not answer and didn't have the time to. Setting myself a layer back in terms of communication – for a while at least – was a matter of survival more than anything else. It didn't always work exactly the way I hoped it would work, but it did take some pressure off me to be able to do the work that I needed to do. There was another conversation that we had several months back. Now, as I share this with you, it might be several months before this podcast episode ever comes out, and I might be talking about something that happened last year, just so we're clear on this. But from where I stand, several months ago, I was staying with a friend in Penticton. She happened to have a room open where I could stay, so I ended up renting it for three months. She had some mutual friends over for a couple of days. They were headed to Toronto One of the things that they said to me was, “Without music, it just doesn't seem like you've got your full self-expression. There's a missing piece and without that in your content, it may not fully resonate.” And I think that kind of hit home for me, finally. Maybe I've only been thinking about trying to do this in a particular way, maybe even my way, without thinking about other elements that could be incorporated. Ways to make it more fun, ways to make it more interesting, engaging, and consistent. And a lot of those things just didn't show up for me until later. Because I was like, “This is my info product and coaching business. Just let me do my thing. I don't want to change.” That wasn’t always the right decision. There definitely would have been opportunities to change that. I wish I'd paid a little more attention to it along the way. But I don't know that it would have ended up in a different decision or a different outcome. It was a platform for me to experiment and try a whole bunch of things to learn. And I did. I learned so much. Things I would do and things I would not do in the future. And how I would tweak things in the future. It's been very educational and informative. So, maybe Music Entrepreneur HQ was a side thing, I just didn't know I looked at it like that at the time. And now in hindsight, there's no denying that it was one of many things that I was doing simultaneously.

There are always those around us who end up having a huge impact on us. We may not realize it as it’s happening, but in retrospect, we can always see who offered a timely word that ended up helping us on our journeys. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares what he learned from his mentor and how he applied it. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – The people who make the greatest difference are those who you are in direct communication with 01:08 – Mess things up 02:10 – #1: Analog vs. digital 05:26 – #2: Beware of who you take advice from 09:02 – #3: Community enterprise 11:57 – Reflecting on David’s community years 12:33 – Win-win-win Transcript: Three concepts I learned from my mentor. Here is someone that I've seen as one of my main mentors over the years. You can have relationships with close people, mentors at a distance, coaches, even the books you read… All of it can end up contributing to you significantly. But inevitably the people who end up making the biggest difference are those that you are in direct communication with. This is someone who has been… I've been by their side, creating projects with them, and they've been by my side, supporting my projects. There are three key things I learned from them that ended up steering the direction of where we're going versus where things went with Music Entrepreneur HQ in the past. Music Entrepreneur HQ was a grand experiment. We had so much fun with it. We tried a whole bunch of stuff. We made lots of mistakes and learned from them. I think a lot of people are afraid of doing that. If they went out and started making projects, started messing things up… Go make a mess. The thing that often gets repeated, whether in network marketing or leadership circles, is “Go make a mess.” That's what people who accomplish things are doing. They're not trying to figure everything out before they start. Never. Commit first, get into action, and then figure out the rest as you go. This is how it works. Commit first, get into action, and then figure out the rest as you go.Share on X This is how courses are developed, right? At least the good ones, because it gives you way more leverage. You can share your course content with your audience before it's ever done. And you can test your stuff and see what people resonate with and see what works. Anyway, the number one concept that I learned from a mentor that has made a difference is “Analog versus digital.” I reinterpreted it into my ecosystem to make sense for me. But his whole contention was that I was doing so much digital marketing stuff. I learned a lot, and that's what a good entrepreneur would do, is they would go and learn. They would go and figure out how marketing works because marketing is your direct connection to revenue. If you don't have good marketing, you can't create revenue in your business. Marketing is your direct connection to revenue.Share on X I don't think my intentions or even my priorities were misplaced. I think that they were in the right place. But I spent so much time creating content, sharing on social media, and sending emails. I was disappointed with some of the results we were getting. Something that he brought to me repeatedly. He would say, “But you know, I tend to think way more analog with that. I'm thinking like, if I look at events, how many people will come out? That's way more of a confirmation of how your project is going, versus passive content that people can just like, comment, or share, or just not even look at or respond to,” And he’s so right, because we publish a lot of stuff that doesn't necessarily do anything, and it's easy to get discouraged with that. When it comes to publishing, I believe you’ve got to keep going no matter what. But when you've done that for years and years, you can easily feel discouraged that things aren't going anywhere. It's like you’re doing something wrong since all your mentors or coaches around you are guiding you. “This is how it's done, so just follow this method and you'll get there.” And then you don't seem to achieve or accomplish the results that they, for some reason, seem to achieve very easily. Which, it just so happens, leads right into the second concept, but I'll get there. The first concept, how that informs things was, that I realized I needed to create something where I was pressing flesh. It doesn't have to be weekly. It doesn't have to be monthly. Annually might not be quite enough interaction. But that's where I started looking at all my experiences and the working models that I acquainted myself with. And network marketing, some of their training programs have four major functions a year. So, I said, “That's the mod

Building a music career isn’t all fun and games and sometimes it’s easy to become discouraged. Maybe no one is coming out to your shows. Maybe you’re struggling to make an income. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how one well-placed question can change everything. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – A stranger started asking questions 01:02 – Doing all the right things 02:08 – Gaining experience playing for an audience 03:13 – The right question can make you feel more understood 04:07 – Therapy is but a question away Transcript: Years ago, I was playing a gig at a coffeehouse, and afterwards, there was someone who came up to me and started asking questions. In hindsight, it may be that he was doing a little bit of market research, trying to figure out if there was a niche that he could serve in the music industry. He never came out and overtly said anything. But I’ve gained some experience in marketing, so the kind of questions he was asking me, later, led me to believe that he may have been looking to see if there is an opportunity for him to be a promoter or help musicians with gigging and stuff like that. Some of the questions were like, “What's the greatest struggle about being a musician right now?” With live performance being one of my focuses at the time, I would have said, “Bringing out an audience.” And we were doing all the right things. I had collaborators, I had songwriting partners, and we performed together regularly. Oftentimes we were very dysfunctional, but we somehow made it work. So, we would play these gigs, and we'd try to do all the right things. Not just the digital presence, although we did send out emails to the email list, posted to social media, put the show dates up on the website, and I think we would have printed out posters and sent out flyers and made personal requests for people to come to our shows. In retrospect, too, it could just be a function of we overplayed the market a little bit, or the same venue too many times. Bringing people out to the same kind of gig at the same kind of venue every single time would present some challenges. I just wasn't thinking that at the time. Bringing people out to the same kind of gig at the same kind of venue every single time can present some challenges.Share on X I'm just thinking, like, “I want to play shows and I want to play more shows and I want to play outside of Calgary, and I want to play everywhere I could possibly book a show.” So, that's kind of where my mind was at. In retrospect, I think it was a great opportunity to gain experience as a live performer. Getting out there and playing in front of an audience, you grow in ways that you simply wouldn't be able to otherwise. And I think you grow faster, too, than just playing music in your basement. Not that there's anything wrong with that, and you can make music from home and make a living doing things that way, too, but I was always on the live performance side, where I wanted to do something with that, including touring. It's funny how things change, though. I don't have as much desire to do grueling schedules across North America. We'll see if that's something that changes. Things can change at a moment's notice, depending on the opportunities that come up, right? But as of now, that doesn't hold a whole lot of appeal for me. I'm looking more so for ways to play a few times per year and make it special, have people come out to those events because it's going to be one of the rare moments, when they'll even be able to see me. That's kind of more been my thought process as of late. But getting back to those questions, I think it's surprising how sometimes people ask questions and you sharing your answers makes you feel more understood. My collaborators and people I worked with were very typically the same people, just in rotating cycles. It's so easy to fall into an echo chamber of someone has a bunch of frustrations or misgivings about people not coming out. Others would just be like, “I don't care, we played, it was a good night, I don't want to do a debrief.” Everybody was kind of coming from their standpoint, which is fine. It's good to have multiple perspectives, but you can very easily fall into an echo chamber there. So, it was amazing to have someone come up and ask me about my struggles and what I thought the solutions were. So, the thing to remember is that sometimes we can be frustrated about where we are in our music career. And yet therapy is often just a question away. If there was someone in your life who could ask you a few questions about what your frustrations are, why you're frustrated, and why you don't see things going the way you want them to go,

David formulated a strategy for a tribute band he’s been playing with for a long time. Having launched a new podcast and merch line, the strategy gained immediate traction, helping the band land a lucrative gig. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares the concept that changed everything for the band. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Starting a new podcast and merch line 00:33 – What the top artists and businesses are doing that others aren’t 01:25 – The different types of content and their advantages and disadvantages 02:05 – Busying yourself with activity attracts customers 03:25 – If you aspire to something greater in your music career, do this 04:18 – Always show that something is going on Transcript: One of my projects beginning last year in November [2022] was getting a new podcast and merch line started for the Def Leppard tribute band that I play in called Adrenalize. One of the reasons that we decided to do anything with that to begin with is to show activity. If you have a website that's not frequently updated, as much as you might think, like, “Okay, so what are people expecting,” right? It takes a while to come up with a new release or “We couldn't take time away from our jobs and our lives to film a video or write a blog post. “So, what do people want?” As much as you might think that… And I think the people who are doing the best in music and honestly, business and most areas of life are those who make it a point to come out with something, with some regularity. You can figure out a way to do it every month, but honestly, for most people, it's a weekly minimum. And if you can do it, do it daily. That would be my suggestion. It doesn't matter whether it's a blog post, a podcast episode, or a video. I think video gives people a direct connection to you, but podcasts benefit you too, because that's one way to get into people's pockets, and into their lives, right? You get to interact with them through the audio medium. They're going to listen to you as they're jogging, doing the dishes, or going for a walk. Whatever it might be, people are going to give you 30 minutes to an hour of their life to listen to you and get to know you. But that's not the point. In terms of content types, choose one, do it, and do it with frequency. That's more the point. And this was based on a book I'd read. I'll find the book and put it in the show notes. I just can't think of the exact title right now. I think it might've been Creative Mind and Success [by Ernest Holmes]. He talks about – and this perspective comes from an older time – he talks about the fact that if you've got a storefront, you should be constantly reorganizing your products and putting them in a new place. Busying yourself with activity attracts customers. It attracts people to your business. It's a great principle. It is correct. So, I suggested to the band leader of Adrenalize… I'm not the one running this show, but I've had a lot of sway in it… I said, “Look, let's begin to show that we've got some activity. Something should always be happening on the website.” So, we got the podcast started and we launched the merch line. And I don't think we recorded and published more than three or four episodes. And I think the gig in downtown Calgary got booked within a month. An outdoor gig of all things. I just finished it. It's, September 16th [2023] as I record this audio. And it was incredible. First, understand. It's not all about money, right? But We got paid $1,500 to do this gig. That's four people. You can do the math, right, as far as how much each person makes? I'm not going to sit here and tell you that that's astronomical. But I do think it's an amount that most musicians and most bands would be like, “How do you do that? I would want to earn that every show we play. How can we make that happen?” And this is it. You must have a presence. An online presence is great. That's something that I've heavily invested in myself. Try to complement it and supplement it with an offline presence, right? For musicians, that's where gigs come in. There’s a great opportunity to create an offline presence for yourself, in addition to an online presence. But that's the concept. The concept is, to busy yourself with activity. Always show that something is going on. It doesn't matter if it’s like, “Hey, I just wanted to give you a little update. Here's what I've been up to today. I practiced guitar and I got a new song.” It could be something as simple as that. But if you can show that you are doing something and document it and continually publish it and share it with your audience, these are the opportuni

Do you trust yourself to make the right decision? Or do you doubt yourself at every turn? While it’s a good idea to question everything including yourself, putting too much pressure on “getting it right” can paralyze you. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why getting our constraints out of the way can help us succeed in our projects. Download the PDF Transcript Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – An unusual coaching call 01:34 – Lean on the expertise of others 02:33 – Trusting yourself 05:12 – The coaching you need vs. the coaching you want Transcript: I had a coaching call today, not with someone I've had a coaching call with before. But of all things, she was looking for some advice on researching a medical device for mental wellness patients. And it was AI-based and all this kind of stuff… She's like, “Well, you know about this stuff in this kind of field, right?” What she was referring to was I know about. business plans. I know about entrepreneurship. I know how to set things up. I've had to produce all kinds of documents for all kinds of people. So, whether it's grants, business plans, or blog posts, I've done it, and I can do it – not with my brain tied behind my back, but close. So, this ended up turning into a very different kind of coaching session, mainly for the reason that I could hear she was stopped and she didn't trust herself with the decisions she was making. I looked at the structure that she had created for the goals she had set for this quarter and the project that she was undertaking. And I was thinking to myself “Okay, she may never have accomplished something quite like this before,” although she got her PhD, and she said that was a painful process. I said to her, “This is not a difficult project if you lean on the expertise of others. In other words, assemble a team, and find the people who know this stuff rather than you trying to figure it out,” especially tedious legal details. It's so easy for us sometimes, artists and entrepreneurs, to let go of a few things. Even when it comes to legal matters, we try to go and research and figure it out ourselves and go on LegalZoom to find documents. But this is what attorneys are for. Now I get that it can be a little bit pricey but go and ask them for their advice. Some people are more than willing to offer some free advice, or maybe just do something for them in exchange. I've met lawyers who like to perform and play gigs. Maybe you could set them up with a gig at a local pub. Who knows, right? Start thinking in terms of possibility rather than “Well, there's no way to do this or have this happen.” Anyway, she's trying to figure out what to do, so I asked her what her “point of view was.” Now, I can't define and explain what that is. If you're interested in learning more about the leadership programs that I've been taking recently, contact me directly and we'll try to figure something out. But anyway, I asked her what that was. It was a distinction I learned in the program. This program has set me up with incredible communication technologies and tools that I’ve never seen or heard of anywhere else. So, that was one of the things that made the leadership program worthwhile – the fact that, at its core, it’s a com communication program. So, she figured out that she didn’t trust herself. She didn't trust the world. She could see that she tried so many projects and tried to get them done in the past and just never got anywhere with them because she didn't trust herself. Like, “Am I doing this right? Is this how it's done? And who should I get to be a part of this?” We all get trapped in this, and I could see how if you were constantly in that state of like, “I don't know, I don't trust myself, I'm not sure if this is the right decision, what decision should I make?” You would just be exhausted in a very short amount of time. You'd end up wasting a ton of energy thinking about things that could be way far ahead in your project and you're trying to figure them out now. I know other entrepreneurs who do this sometimes. They get stuck in “What’s next?” Even when they're taking courses, it's kind of like, “Yeah, okay, so I heard this part and that's great, but then, what about this?” And it's like, “Yeah, that's in the next module. Just be patient, it's coming. You don't have to figure that out today. The thing that you must figure out today is the module or the lesson that you just took. You don't have to figure out all the other stuff.” That's a good lesson for all of us, right? So, I think it ended up being a very unexpected coaching call for her. I'm pretty sure she did not expect to be coached on feeling the world was untrus

If you receive bad instruction, you’ll get bad results. Obviously, right? And to be fair, there are people out there who are intentionally steering you in the wrong direction. But sometimes, the best instructions can still go through the wrong filter, leading to subpar results. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why this happens. Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Trying and failing to open a bag of cereal 01:07 – Getting and interpreting instructions 01:46 – What happens when you get the recipe wrong? 02:43 – “Gurus” steering you in the wrong direction 03:59 – Even with the best instructions, you can still mess it up 04:38 – The importance of ongoing self-education Transcript: I was opening a bag of cereal this morning. You notice how sometimes they have instructions on them, like “Tear here?” So, I was trying to tear it open, and I managed to remove some of the material but not enough of it… the tear should have been a little bit lower. So, the bag did not open. Now I'm trying to pull it open and that's not happening. Of course, at that point, scissors and knives come out to cut. It's one of those resealable bags, right? If you do it wrong – now, I managed to avoid this – but if you do it wrong, you end up ruining the resealable parts. Then the bag is cut open and the entire system is ruined. But what this reminded me of was the fact that sometimes we get instructions from our coaches or mentors, the people who are guiding us in our careers. It could even be our managers. Now, their advice could be perfectly on point, but sometimes the way we hear it and interpret it and then put it into action simply won’t work. The advice you receive could be on point. But the way you interpret it and put it into action could be flawed.Share on X So, even with the best instructions, you can run into situations where it was not executed correctly. It was not interpreted correctly. And because it ended up filtering through you, you did not get the expected results from the action. And this is what we run into most with our training. I think most experts are well-meaning. You can certainly identify those who are just out there constantly selling on webinars every day, all the time, every week. “Webinar, webinar, webinar, come see my webinar. buy my course, buy my thing, buy my stack, buy my offer.” I'm not saying that's wrong, but I think some people do have more of a money motive than a willingness, inclination, or passion to help others. But the point is if we're actively looking and questioning what we're hearing, then we're not receiving bad advice. Now, sometimes we are. But we're not generally receiving bad advice though. So, we think we heard it right and we did it right and we executed correctly and for some reason, the recipe doesn't work, and the cake tastes horrible. That's human error. Then on the other hand, of course, you will find people that don't give you the right instructions or don't give them to you in a way that could even be interpreted and executed properly by you. Now, mindset advice is sometimes like this, and mindset is more about, “Let me get my attitude and thinking straight so that I can go and do the things that I need to do without having to constantly contend with distractions and negative feedback and negative comments” because those things are going to come whether you like it or not. Some people just aren't going to like you or they’re not going to like what you do. But if you have the right mindset, you won't be held back by negative comments and negative reviews and… God forbid death threats, which is not fun for anyone. Some of my friends have received those too. But mainly we're talking about practical advice on how to book more gigs or how to set up an online music career or get your website right and that kind of thing. And sometimes we do get completely wrong instructions. Some are only interested in making money off you. The point is we can still mess it up with the best instructions available. And if that's what's happening, we need to take a closer look. What did we miss? Even with the best instruction available, you can still mess it up.Share on X I learned James Schramko's Own The Racecourse method when I rebuilt Music Entrepreneur HQ many years ago. It’s a powerful strategy and it did magnetically attract a lot of traffic because I was consistently doing the right things. I still missed certain pieces, though, which didn't help me stay relevant. And that's no good, right? If you have a strategy and you're executing it and it's working, you want to stay relevant with your audience. And I think this also gives a lot more credence and testament to the importance of ongoing self-education. You’ve got to be

If you treat your business like a hobby, you will make a hobby level income. If you don’t value your clients, then whatever income you have will dry up, especially if you don’t have a day job. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares his experience as a longtime freelancer, community builder, and entrepreneur. Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – A critical mindset shift for artist entrepreneurs 01:28 – Having a safe, secure reliable income doesn’t allow you to make the switch 02:50 – The struggle of transitioning from employee to entrepreneur mindset 03:09 – Stop playing games Transcript: There will be multiple mindset shifts you go through as an entrepreneurial musician. But I think one of the most important ones you will go through is embracing your business, your customers, your clients, anything that produces an income for you as a life-or-death matter. Think of it this way. Most people have a day job that they rely on for their income. But what if that dried up tomorrow? What if you did not have an income from your job? How would that change the way you look at the customers and clients that you have right now? This is a very real scenario. It happens to a lot of people. I get that many people would then take that opportunity to look for a new job, right? If you were to embrace becoming more of an artist entrepreneur, the thing that you would look at is, “Okay, now that I don't have a job, I need to embrace my customers and clients that I have as a life or death matter, and serve them in a manner that lets them know how much I care about them” because you can't afford to lose those customers or clients anymore. This tends not to happen when you have a safe, reliable monthly income. Even if it's not amounting to much. Even if it's only $30,000 – $40,000 a year. If you have that and you know it's coming in, the temptation is you never make this mindset switch. And I've seen it with people who, unfortunately… They told me they were entrepreneurs, they said they were entrepreneurs, but their mindsets said otherwise. They were employees. They were in an employee mindset. When I shared with them that clients, to me, were a life-or-death matter, they laughed. They didn't understand how that worked. They'd always been in sales jobs and stuff like that, so they got the hustle. They got that they had to call people. They got that they had to build a relationship, and that there was a certain amount of responsibility that went with their job. But if they hit their figures or above, it's not like they cared about it. Where someone in my position, losing a client could be a big deal. I’m diversified enough to be able to make things work, but in a situation where I've got five clients and they're each bringing me $500 to $1,000 a month, that's my living. Losing one client would mean making a sacrifice. This is where a lot of people struggle, making that switch from employee to entrepreneur mindset. Even in their artistic careers, they never get to the point of treating their customers and their clients and their business and their income as a a life-or-death matter because they always have something they think they can fall back on. If you want to know what it's like to be an entrepreneur, to bring that mindset to your artistic career, stop playing games. Give up the day job and see what it's like. Even if it's just for a few weeks or a couple months, try it out for yourself. See what it's like, because now your life depends on those clients. And now you've got to build a better relationship with them. And now you've got to show up in such a way that lets them know that you care about their business. Stop playing games.Share on X

Have you ever had trouble describing what it is you do for work to others? Do you sometimes feel like it’s an exercise in futility, and you’re better off keeping personal details private? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why he hasn’t had a job since 2011, and what that has meant for his life. Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – Conversation at a dinner party 00:43 – Why lengthy conversations tend not to elucidate anything 01:41 – Why David hasn’t had a job since 2011 02:18 – Writing 15,000 words per week 02:29 – The difference between how an employee and entrepreneur thinks 03:25 – Paying the price 04:02 – Contrasting sharpness with dullness 04:57 – Embracing the challenge 05:08 – Entrepreneurship is irresponsible? Transcript: I was recently at a dinner party and the conversation turned to what I did. And I said that I did not have a job since 2011. So, of course, the question comes, “How does that work?” Now, I was not triggered at that moment. And nor would there be any good reason to be, I don't think. But if I was to be triggered, then I probably would have had a more thorough response in what it is that I do. Sometimes I find that trying to explain to people what it is that I do and how my life works is more trouble than it's worth. If they don't understand it even after a long explanation, then what was the point in wasting all that time and energy explaining in the first place? Sometimes that's how my life works because I'm always trying to get to the next thing. I could sit here and have a conversation for 15, 20, 30 minutes. And that was never scripted into my schedule, never budgeted for. And lengthy explanations end up taking time away from the things that I was planning to do. I think this is how ambitious people tend to think. They want to get everything done and move with urgency. Their time is limited. Energy is limited. Ambitious people want to get everything done and move with urgency. Time is limited. Energy is limited.Share on X Once you've set your mind on doing something, you don't want to question it because that just wastes more energy. You want to go and do it and get it done the way that you designed your day. But the reason I have not had a traditional or formal job since 2011 is that I decided that wasn't for me. I started building a business. For me, it looked to be the least risky option. The risky option was going to work every morning to do a job I didn't like, to be surrounded by people I didn't like, and bosses I didn't like. And that was not the life I wanted to live. I don't look down on anybody who can do a job. I admire them. It's because I couldn't do a job that I ended up having to choose this life path. The other way wasn't working. And if I was to summarize it, although it's not encompassing everything I do, I write about a quarter of a book per week. That equates to roughly 15,000 to 20,000 words. Now, I think a lot of people have a compartment for work in their minds. It occupies the space from 9 – 5 or 8 – 6 or whatever the variation on that might be. I guess for some people that's later, they’ve got some late shifts, so maybe it's 7 PM to 2 AM or whatever. Either way, it occupies a certain space in their lives. They have a start time for their job, and they have an end time for their job. And once they're off work, they can go and do whatever they want. It's not the way an entrepreneur's life works. We’re kind of on 24/7. If an opportunity drops in our lap, and it looks like something that we would want to pursue, we do it. “I'm going to jump at it at the drop of a hat and get into motion for it.” Clients might call or send emails at strange and unusual times throughout the day because they have a schedule. Entrepreneurs don’t bargain with the price of what it's going to take. It's more like, “Let me embrace that.” Even though there are going to be weeks where I know I don't want to do it and wake up and write another 15,000 words this week, this is what I've committed to doing. Depending on the client you're serving or the project you've taken on, that might be your life. That might be what it looks like. And it's not going to be 9 – 5. Much of my life has been 9 – 9 lately or 9 – 10 and on some rare occasions 9 – 2 or even 3 AM. So, people wonder why their emails are not getting answered by Friday… It’s because, for me, those long days usually happen between Monday and Thursday. By Friday I might be feeling a little bit fried depending on the week that I just had, and I may not be able to be as productive as I could be. Think of it this way. If you just came from a vacation and you got a tan and you're feeling great and you got a perfect sleep and the

Everywhere you look, so-called “experts” are talking about how you can or can’t do this or that in 2023 or 2024. But do those gurus know what they’re talking about? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why nothing is obsolete, and how you can still blaze a personal music career trail in 2024. Sponsors: Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook: Get a free copy of the “Definitive Guide to Productivity for Artists and Entrepreneurs.” Highlights: 00:17 – You’re getting hooked by misleading titles 00:54 – Can you still do XYZ in 2024? The answer is… 01:17 – Popular genres change 02:20 – Take success into your own hands 02:49 – Stay on a growth path 03:27 – Don’t be lazy Transcript: Have you ever seen those videos with titles like “Can you still sell music in 2023?” And “Can you still start a band in 2023?” Well, here's the dirty secret, right? Those videos get made because you keep watching them, plain and simple. Those are titles to grab you. Those are hooks to grab you and draw you into the conversation. Is that wrong? No, of course not. I'm throwing hooks out there all the time to see what resonates with people and what you connect with, so I can continue to draw attention for my business. It's what a responsible business owner and content creator would do. But if you're really wondering if you can still do XYZ in 2023, the answer is almost invariably, “Yes.” The only problem is most people aren't willing to do the looking. They aren't willing to reinvent and innovate and pioneer and think of new ways of making it happen. Can you start a band in 2023? Why the hell not? Of course, you can start a band in 2023. Now, some people will say, “Well, you know, pop is the predominant genre” and blah, blah, blah. Yeah, maybe that's true. Top 40 music may be dominated by electronic music, trap, pop, and whatever else is hip right now. But what history has shown repeatedly is popular genres change. They change at a moment's notice, and you never know what's going to be big next. By the time you've jumped on a trend, it's too late. You're behind the trend by that point. Popular genres change.Share on X Look at the 80s, right? Hair metal, which I prefer to call 80s metal or 80s hard rock… That was huge in the 80s. Of course, there was stuff like synth-pop that was very popular in the 80s as well. But as it began to shift to the 90s, what was the predominant sound? Grunge, right? We all know that this shift happened and continues to happen. And then in the early 2000s, what happened? Nu metal. And yeah, again, rock may not be in mainstream consciousness in the same way it was in the 90s. But that in no way foretells your success or failure as a band. Don't listen to people who are saying otherwise. You should be the one to take charge, take leadership, be an entrepreneur, and figure out a model that's going to work. Is it going to take a long time? Will you need to blaze some trails? I did. It did take me a long time and I did have to blaze some trails, but I'm finally figuring out a working model for me. So, you can figure out a working model for you too. But it might require that you plug into materials like these and listen to them, take courses, educate yourself, and keep on that personal growth path. Read books. Go outside of your regular influences, your network, the books you normally read, and the movies you usually watch. Start to challenge yourself and bring your attention to new things and different things. The only reason you stay stuck in anything is because you bring your attention to the same things every single day. As you bring your attention to new places, new things, and new people, you will begin to see new opportunities. Don't be lazy. Don't be like these people who are like, “Can you still get streaming royalties from Spotify?” Yes, yes, and yes. As long as Spotify exists, you can make streaming royalties on Spotify. I'm not promising a specific number. I'm not promising you're going to make a living there. But can you still make royalties on Spotify? Hell yeah. Don't think that way. It's lazy. Start to think in terms of “How we can innovate, pioneer, and create a model that works for us.” Think in terms of how to innovate, pioneer, and create a model that works for you.Share on X

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 adm

Sometimes we know deep down when we need to leave something behind – a project, a circumstance, a person, whatever we 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 tr

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&#

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

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 str

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 th

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, “

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

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

Have you ever been blamed for something you didn’t do? How did you respond to the situation? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David recounts a time when things went a little awry with a summer School of Rock program, he was a part of. 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 – Teaching guitar in Airdrie 01:10 – Paycheck catastrophe 03:06 – Moral of the story Transcript: There's a memory I was reflecting on today and I was just marveling at the complete absurdity and oddity of it. I was teaching guitar in Airdrie many years ago and they had something, I'm pretty sure it was called the School of Rock program, like a summer program for kids who wanted to continue to improve on their instruments through the summer. And as I recall, I was teaching guitar to one of the kids, and of course I also attended the final event where the band came together and performed a song. And in this case, I think it might have been a few songs, or there may have been a few bands, but one of the songs was for sure “Seven Nation Army.” So, I played a small part in preparing the kids for this event. I wasn't the only teacher, and I certainly wasn't the only organizer in the whole thing. And then after the fact, I'm given a check. And it is made out to me. Now, it wasn't an absurd amount of money, okay? It was probably, maybe in the higher hundreds, maybe $1,200 at most. But I'm thinking, “Okay, that was a pretty decent payday. I should do this every year.” It's not like it’s going to pay the bills or anything, but it's certainly better than earning nothing. And sometimes earning as a teacher through the summer months isn't all that great. So, the check is made out to me. I don't think anything of it and I go and deposit it like a normal person would. And then, I think it was probably the next day, I get a phone call from one of the main guys working the front counter and he tells me “Uh, you know, we gave you too much money.” And I don't know how he even did this but somehow he made it out to be my fault. Let's keep in mind that check was made out to me for the amount that it was made out to. So, he kind of made it my fault. He was sitting there going, “Yeah, we can't pay you that amount. That was like what we earned for all the School of Rock program. Your pay is like a quarter of that,” which I guess kind of made sense. I was thinking, “Yeah, okay. For that amount of work, that's probably about right.” And they were owing me a few hundred dollars, not like 900 or 1,200 or whatever it was. And I was trying to reassure the guy, right? I'm like, “Okay, small mix up, things happen. Let me get the rest of the money back to you, whatever I'm owing, and then everything will be sorted out, right?” But he kind of kept going on and on about, “Yeah, we can't pay you that, and why would you go and deposit that? And I'm like, “It was a check with my name written on it. Why would there be any reason for me to be skeptical of that?” Moral of the story? Well, I think there are a few things you could take away from that. One is there comes a time for people to speak up. You may not be the outspoken type. But someone might try to smear your perfectly good name. And those are not situations where you can stay silent. You must speak up and say, “This is not my fault. It didn't happen because of something I did.” There was a mistake made on your end or someone else who was writing the checks or whatever it may be, but ultimately it wasn't my fault. I'm not responsible for it. I'm responsible for getting the difference back to you, but that's my only responsibility in this. Another message could certainly be beware of scammers. We're in a weird world, right? Like, kids are told “Don't talk to strangers” but if you grow up believing that and become an adult believing that you should never talk to any strangers, you're going to have a lot of problems later. You’re not going to be able to get a date, or you're not going to be able to network, or you're not going to be able to get the contacts that are going to make a difference in your music career. We live in this world of paradox, but anybody that texts you randomly out of the blue are generally not to be trusted. I kind of learned that the hard way. I mean, I've been around a long time. I probably could have been scammed hundreds of times. I think I've been fortunate enough that I've only ever been scammed once and nearly scammed on another occasion, but they're getting smarter and smarter. Trust me when I say this – you must beware of complete strangers for sure. Those are a couple of morals that come to mind, but I’m curious to hear what you hear in this event and how you view it.

Traditional education is useful. But did it set you up with everything you need to navigate the waters ahead? If you could go back to high school and do it over again, what classes would you have taken? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares the most valuable education he got in high school. 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 usefulness of school for artists, freelancers, and entrepreneurs 00:58 – It’s cheaper to travel the world than it is to live in a major city 01:50 – School leaves you with many incorrect assumptions 02:27 – #1: Typing / keyboarding 03:20 – #2: English 07:15 – #3: Art 08:05 – What David would have done differently Transcript: So, I got to thinking today. What are the most useful classes I ended up taking in high school? School has limited use for freelancers, entrepreneurs, sometimes even artists. I said “limited use.” I didn't say no use. School is an important part of our growth and yet it has the potential to be so much better, not lead people down these hallways of “This is life, this is how it is, and this is the way you should be.” People get stuck there and then they end up living lives that they don't want, don't like. They're not able to create the life they love because they're limited by everything. I remember having a conversation about how it's cheaper to travel the world than it is to live in a major city. People are like, “No way, no way. You need a lot of money to travel the world.” I'm like, “No, you don't. You don't. You literally don't. It is cheaper to travel the world than it is to live in a major city like New York or LA.” I find it surprising that people think that's surprising. Now, of course, it depends on how you route your trip. Waste all your money in Zurich or something like that. It depends on how you route your trip. But if for example, you spend a good chunk of your time in Asia… Honestly, even if you go to Japan and stay in Tokyo, chances are it's cheaper than most major cities in North America. It just is. The food is way cheaper. So, school is leaving people with a lot of incorrect assumptions. That, combined with the fact that our ego wants to be right about everything. It's a dangerous combination for getting stuck in a certain way of life that's dictated to you, instead of the life by your creation. Life by default, instead of life by design. That’s my preamble. School is leaving people with many incorrect assumptions.Share on X But this one is about focusing on what were the most useful subjects and classes in school. Number one for me. Absolutely number one for me. It may be something that everyone can do nowadays, but it wasn't always the case, especially when I was growing up, and that's typing. I did not like my teacher all that much. She had a strict “three strikes out” policy. If you missed your homework, like it was not exactly easy to remember. And this was even an elective course if I'm not mistaken, it was not a core subject. But if you missed your homework three times, didn't get a signature from your parent, you were out. That was it. You were not going to get a pass in that course. I did not like that system. I did not like my teacher. What did I learn though? I learned how to type. You know what? That's like an essential skill now. I'm just glad that I was ahead of the curve rather than behind it. Number two is English. I ended up starting in English 10, just like everybody else. I didn't do very well. Probably because I grew up in Japan. I was still only two years living in Canada, not even one full year. And so, I'm taking English at the level that everyone else is taking it and I'm struggling a little bit. And the biggest thing was reading speed. I don't know. I don't even know that to this day I have a reading speed that exceeds most people. Just that I'm far more dedicated to reading, period. I've read a couple hundred books going on to 300. I plan to make my way to hundreds, maybe even thousands of books in the following years. But at the time I was not a good reader. I struggled with that. I think I got a passing grade, but just barely good enough. And from there I went into English 23, which is the lesser one. If I'd done well in English 10, I would have moved on to English 20. I didn't, I went into English 23. I did very well in English 23. And part of that was I'd always had this innate fascination with vocabulary. I was obsessed with it. I just wanted to learn more words. I thought it was amazing that some people could sound so smart and intelligent. It's a silly thing looking back now, but these are the thoughts that occur to a 14-year-old, right? I thought, “Wow, these people sound so smart usin

We can all find ourselves in desperate situations from time to time. But feeling desperate and acting desperate are two separate things. A feeling is something you can resolve within yourself. But acting desperately may do nothing to resolve the situation you’re facing. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why desperation tends not to move money and what to do instead. 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 – Desperation doesn’t pay 00:44 – One of the best books on the topic of money 01:21 – The cry of the desperate 02:41 – When asking isn’t enough 03:43 – What David would do if he was in a desperate situation 05:20 – Desperation isn’t what’s standing between you and abundance Transcript: So, I was driving home from grocery shopping today and there was a panhandler at the side of the road and there are some thoughts that occur to me. Such as “What's the mentality of someone who's in that spot as well as the level of desperation?” And I'm reminded of something that is key to money. And it may sound simple, but it goes much deeper than you might think. And that's that desperation doesn't pay. One of the best books on the topic of money that will help reprogram your mind, I've read many, but one of the best ones if you already have some level of training in money and abundance thinking is Dan Kennedy's No B.S. Wealth Attraction in the New Economy. Now, with a title like that, you might assume it's about something else entirely, but the entire book is about “Wealth Magnets,” and there are many principles in there, some of which I've referenced in past podcast episodes, and I wholeheartedly recommend that book. But one of the things I realize, I've been approached by people before that want to do business with me. They're looking for anything to do. And that's not always convenient for someone like me. Like, yes, there's always stuff going on in my business, but if I want someone to take over social media, for example. I’ve got to train them and how that's supposed to happen. Now, of course, there's going to be people with a degree of competency and experience and skill in that field already, but most people are still going to require a little bit of like, here's our brand. Here's what we want to post. Here's the frequency. Here's what should happen. Here's how we want to distribute our content more broadly. And without that type of direction, they're not going to succeed. We simply wouldn't want to keep them on our staff for no reason, if they're not going to do a good job, they're not going to elevate our business. If they're not going to help bring in customers, why would we keep them on staff? It doesn't work like that. The world of business is cold. The way it works is if I'm not making money off you as an employee, I'm not keeping you. That's just how it is. It doesn't make sense to hire willy-nilly. So, this whole idea of “desperation doesn't pay.” I think many people are sort of in this mindset that, “Oh, the only reason I don't have what I want is because I haven't asked for it.” And yes, there is something to that, right? It is a biblical principle. If you don't have, ask. It's because you haven't asked, and you’ve got to keep asking and asking and asking and knocking on doors until you're blue in the face. Yeah, but you think about panhandlers and it's like you're asking money from people who are in a variety of situations. Some of them are house poor, some of them are car poor. Some of them might be wealthy and well off but in an economy like this, if you expect that people have thousands and tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars saved up in an inflationary economy, I think in most cases you're mistaken. And so, the only thing missing from you getting what you want is asking for it? If you're asking for something for free, that's just not going to ring true, right? If it were me, and if I were in a desperate financial situation, here's what I would do. I would prioritize reaching out to five prospective clients every single day. I would hang my shingle and I would start my business and I'd probably do something like content or web design or graphic design. Maybe those jobs will soon be extinct and no longer applicable in the modern world because of AI. But for the time being, people are still looking for experts to handle different stuff. And if that wasn't the case, then people would be laid off in droves. Which again, that could be coming, but hasn't happened yet, right? Anyway, over the course of the year, I would have reached out to well over 600 prospective clients. If I prioritized rea

Are you feeling tired? Are you exhausted? Are you so far gone that you’re not even tuned into your well-being? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why a dull knife won’t cut through the noise (and there is more than one way to take this!). 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 – Mental sharpness 00:48 – The importance of rest 01:59 – A dull knife won’t cut 02:39 – The ideal 03:18 – Like a frog being boiled 03:34 – Sometimes it feels unreasonable to take breaks Transcript: I've been resting for about a week straight, and today, in conversation with others, I discovered that my mental sharpness was off the charts. And this tells me a couple things. The first is that I don't know the last time I've felt this sharp. So, I've been operating at dullness, or a degree of dullness, for quite a while. I don't even know how long. I don't know the last time I felt this sharp, which is weird. The next thing is the importance of rest. Vacations, holidays, breaks, whatever you want to call them. I've been calling this my “break” and people go, “I don't know what that means.” So, I realized I guess I should call it a “holiday” or “vacation.” I spent a few days in Seattle, but it's not exactly a getaway. It's more of a staycation. So, maybe that's the correct terminology to use here is “staycation.” Either way, you’ve got to find what's going to work for you. That might mean taking a week off every quarter, it might mean taking two weeks off in a year, but I don't know, I feel like two weeks off in a year is almost the minimum. You just start to feel normal, at least if you're operating at my level, and the level that some of the other business owners I know. You only start to disconnect and feel normal after about five days. And then the rest of the time you're sort of sleeping and resting off the fatigue. Next year I'm looking at a week off every quarter because I think every quarter is going to be intense. I'm going to keep to a schedule that allows me to produce a lot of stuff at a high level. The last thing is a dull knife, or a dull axe doesn't cut through much. You can keep pounding and pounding and pounding away and not get anywhere with anything. And a sharp knife just slices through it all. Or a sharp axe. A sharp knife can slice through all.Share on X I think about how long I've not been operating at full capacity and suddenly it comes into view why I was starting to feel a little bit flat in some of these conversations and why I didn't feel as effective in my coaching. It's like, “Oh yeah, I haven't been completely present. My body has checked out on its own.” I think the ideal is still to work at a pace that never leaves you feeling tired, right? The 40- to 60- to 80- or 120-hour workweeks… I don't even know if you can realistically pull off 120-hour workweeks. I have my reservations and skepticism about that. In the category of question everything, that's up there. The ideal is to work at a pace that never leaves you feeling tired.Share on X But the idea is if you can work about 20 or 15 hours a week, that's a schedule you can sustain and still be sharp. 40 hours a week. I don't know. I think at some point you just run out. You’re going to reach a point where you're not as sharp. And again, the problem is it's kind of like a frog being boiled gradually. You don't notice it until later until you've had the opportunity to stop and rest and become present to how dull you've been and for how long. We live in a world where sometimes it feels completely unreasonable to take breaks, doesn't it? Like, interruptions still show up, people still break boundaries, and there can be financial concerns. And all this stuff can come up as you're resting, but when you get back at it, you’ll be way sharper. And you'll be able to get way more done, way faster. So, at the end of the day, I think if you want to be high performing, you’ve got to make sure that you're getting the rest you need. If you want to perform at a high level, ensure that you're getting the rest you need.Share on X

Many of us like to think we’re worth more than we’re being paid. This may be true. But in our current profession, it may not be possible to earn more. Which can only mean one thing – the only way to increase your artistic income is by shifting your mindset. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how to break out of the income box you’re stuck in. 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 – Facing the cold, hard facts 03:22 – Confronting the truth 04:12 – The value that different businesses provide 06:35 – What artists can learn from other industries 08:16 – Finding a music career model that works Transcript: You are paid what you're worth. Sometimes this is difficult to accept, especially when you feel like the effort that you're putting in is not proportionate to the payment you're receiving for it. So, let's look at this. What's the problem? And why do we need to accept that you are paid what you're worth? Well, firstly, we sometimes need to come face to face with hard realities to be able to progress beyond where we are. We sometimes need to come face to face with hard realities to be able to progress beyond where we are.Share on X I've had to do this myself. I don't like looking at the fact that or thinking about the idea that what I'm paid right now by some of my clients is what I'm worth. Because they dictate many of the terms. I remember hearing that Joe Vitale got paid something like $6 per word. That's insane. Maybe I'm not at Joe Vitale level. I certainly don't have his notoriety. But I would not say, especially based on the amount of work that I put into writing, I have seven books and three best-sellers out of that… That my value would be equivalent to, let's say a beginner freelance writer. Five, six, or seven cents per word is totally acceptable for a beginner writer. But as you gain experience, it's got to start to go up, right? Based on the value that you're able to generate for others. I would not say that my value is any less than 20 cents. I would even say that a dollar per word wouldn't be totally out of the question for someone like me because a lot of people have told me that not only do they appreciate my writing, but they think it's great and they very much resonate with it. That tells you something because technically, yeah, anybody can write, but writing something people appreciate, enjoy, and resonate with is an entirely different proposition. Let's say a client is paying me about four grand per month for the content I'm generating for them. Well, if it was four grand per month for three hours of work, I'd say that's extraordinary. But four grand for 30 hours of work? Well, how much time and energy am I realistically left with? After 30 hours per month of work, not a lot. Maybe I could put in 10 hours, right? Or maybe I could put in an additional 20 or 30 hours if I was hustling and grinding. Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself, “That four grand per month, I'm worth so much more than that.” At the same time, I realize I can't argue with reality. In an argument between you and reality, reality always wins. So, facing the idea that I'm worth four grand per month, or whatever I'm being paid in total combined between all my clients, but just for this example, we'll say four grand per month because that's just easier to understand, brings me to the point of going, “Huh. Maybe in this current position or what I'm currently providing to my clients is worth that and may only ever be worth that.” Why would I want to face that harsh truth? Because it would allow me to take that feedback and go, “I need to adjust course. I need to figure out something else that's going to be of greater value to my clients such that I can be paid more for it.” There are many examples in the world. Let's look at farmers because I love the metaphor as well as the example in general. Farmers produce a lot of food, right? That’s the basis of that specific business. So, what does producing a lot of food allow them to do? When they produce a lot of crops, they're able to distribute it and sell it to a lot of people. Because they're serving larger numbers of people, they're able to earn a lot more money. In Lower Mainland and Fraser Valley, I haven't seen too many farmers with beat-up, run-down homes. In fact, many of them have what I would consider close to castles or mansions, They make something ordinary, but valuable. Food is valuable, and they serve a lot of people, and that's the basis for the huge sums of profits they're able to make. I think a good contrasting example, though it's one where a lot of money is still made, so in that sense, it's not confl

Why is it important for artists to pursue collaborative opportunities? What qualities should they be looking for in collaborators? What benefits can artists expect to enjoy from collaborating? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares how you can grow your fan base through collaboration. 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 – Seeking strategic collaborations 00:54 – The importance of starting where you are 01:28 – The illusion of the creator economy 02:21 – Your core audience is usually made up of people you know 03:15 – The passing of the torch 03:55 – Everyone has a platform 04:42 – When you collaborate with others, you attract different fans 05:06 – The right timing for collaboration 05:30 – What makes for a great collaborator? Transcript: Moving forward, I'm looking to produce a lot more music, and as a result, I'm also looking for more collaborators to work with. I've had the opportunity to meet quite a few people, whether it's through the two-year intensive leadership program that I've been taking, or in the communities that I interact and engage with. It's not necessarily that I need collaborators, more so that I see opportunities. As I look to collaborate with others, I recognize that they might have access to an audience or a fan base that I don't have. I am often limited, and artists in general are often limited to their immediate vicinity. Even though we do live in the internet age, or the digital age and you can market to just about anyone across the world, the reality is you're better off starting where you are and finding your audience there. Because the only people who reliably come to your shows and buy your merch and become long-term fans are the people you've met versus those you haven't met. The only people who reliably come to your shows and buy your merch and become long-term fans are the people you know.Share on X Even though we have this illusion in the creator economy, gig economy, YouTuber culture of what's going on right now. A lot of people are just subscribing for superficial reasons to some of their favorite YouTubers and aren't necessarily there to buy things from them. You think about OnlyFans or Patreon or some of these other private subscriptions that have popped up. Yes, there are people who care, but if you dig beneath the surface, you realize quickly that a lot of these subscriptions happen for very superficial reasons, right? It's like if there's a YouTube model, and she's wearing more revealing outfits in her OnlyFans subscriptions, then people subscribe to that because they want the extra content. Maybe it's a cynical point of view but I don't think it is. I've seen this whole thing repeat and play out repeatedly because I've been a part of so many communities. What we've primarily seen is you might attract the occasional person who is part of the broader artistic community that pops up at events here and there. But for the most part, the audiences that pack out the events tend to be people that you know or people that are in that extended network. Maybe, for example, if it's like the jazz community, then one of your hosts or somebody knows a bunch of musicians in the jazz community that you may not know. They’re naturally drawn to the event because of the other people who are showing up or the performers who are showing up to be a part of the event. I played in churches years ago and there was sort of a passing of torch. I had Daniel Guy Martin on my first podcast, DAWCast: Music Entrepreneurship, many years back. He was the one that I saw on stage at that church. He was the lead guitarist and played a pivotal role on the worship team as well. Well, he passed the torch to me, and he told me – he was clear about this – that I would reach different people than he would be able to reach through that same platform and I think he turned out to be right. So, when bands or artists collaborate, people aren't always drawn to the same person. There might be something about the band. Like in Van Halen, people were naturally drawn towards Eddie Van Halen because of his extraordinary playing as well as his childlike giddiness on stage, unmatched by other guitarists. People also know David Lee Roth, and they know Sammy Hagar, but outside of that, they might not necessarily be able to name the other band members. I can, of course, and I would say anyone who likes Van Halen probably can, but I think you get what I'm saying here is that you're naturally drawn to different personalities and different acts. People are naturally drawn to different personalities.Share on X So therein lies one of the benefits of collaboration. You, yourself, are going to attract some people through your platform, but when yo

It seems like “best-selling” authors are everywhere. As with anything else, of course, some are lying about their accomplishments. But some are very genuine. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David delves into the world of best-selling authors and whether they’re all gaming the system. 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 – Skepticism regarding best-selling authors 00:33 – Gaming the system 02:30 – The facts 02:57 – A great book 04:36 – Access to a significant following 06:27 – Access to resources 07:15 – You can’t achieve best-seller status without at least one advantage 08:04 – David’s experience 08:23 – Is your skepticism warranted? 09:41 – Seasons in business 11:39 – Different motivations for becoming a best-selling author 13:33 – Crabs in a bucket Transcript: Coming soon.

In a world where anything goes, and seemingly the “dumbest” things go viral, it can be discouraging creating quality content daily without seeing any kind of traction. So, what is there to do? Give up? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares the right mindset to adopt as you look to climb your social media mountain. 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 – Tricking your mind 01:14 – Avoiding discouragement 01:53 – Healthy detachment 02:15 – Publishing, testing, and iterating 03:28 – How to go viral 04:03 – Setting a hypothesis 04:22 – Avoiding analysis paralysis 04:53 – 100 days Transcript: Anything can hit, but it probably won't. And I know that sounds kind of goofy. It sounds kind of weird, but it's true. And it helps us get into the right mindset. It tricks our mind into going, “Oh yeah, I need to keep producing. Because chances are whatever I throw out there today isn't necessarily going to grab a lot of attention.” Unless you already have a history of engaged followers who like, comment, and share all your stuff. But even then, I would posit, I would assert that people who follow your stuff aren't liking, commenting, and sharing it all the time. One post gets more traction than the other, am I right? That’s how it works for everyone. Sure, some people get consistently one million views or one million likes on everything they publish, but the numbers still vary from one post to the next. Some are more resonant. That's the way it works. For some it's a depressing thought, because they work hard at what they do and they want their next masterpiece to be the thing that everybody tunes into. But you can look for example, after example. I mean, if you've listened to the podcasts I've listened to, you don't know how many experts and how many people say that the big, long-form article or piece of content that they’re producing that they expected go viral, didn't. And then this little thing that they never expected to go anywhere... A little idea they were throwing out into the universe suddenly blew up. So, there’s something to healthy detachment. It's not like I'm saying don't spend time working on what you're working on. I think it's worth putting time and effort into everything. But there is sort of a healthy detachment to reach, and I feel like this is one of those statements that can trick our mind into getting there: “Anything could hit, but it probably won't.” And if you wanted to take a little more of a scientific approach, I do recommend that. I'm not against data or anything like that. You could begin testing certain types of content, but ultimately, you're just going to have to come to the table with a ton of ideas and publish them one by one anyway, aren't you? The easiest thing to do in that case is to Start making a big list of all your content ideas. “I could try this, I could try this, I could try this.” Some are going to take longer, some of them are going to be easier to perform, and there's not necessarily a right or wrong way to tackle that list. Whatever keeps you consistent, I think that's the key. Once you have that list, it's about publish, publish, publish, like preferably daily. If you can't do daily, you can't do daily. That's just how things are, but preferably publish, publish, publish every day. Something new. Here's a video. Here's a live. Keep to one form, don't jump all over the place with different mediums. That's probably not going to help you with platforms. Choose one – podcasting, blogging, or video content and publish daily. And what usually happens… it could be day 93, it could be day 300, it could be day 1321. But at some point, one of those videos or pieces of content ends up resonating and connecting with people. It just ends up exploding and it provides more for you than anything else. And that's all you need to get a big influx of customers or listeners or clients or whatever it is you're trying to get. It certainly isn't about no strategy. It's more like setting a hypothesis based on what I'm seeing out there, based on what I've read and studied and looked at. The kinds of comments people are leaving. What I know about my audience, here are the things that I think are going to work. And then you go and test them. That helps you avoid analysis paralysis as well, which is another common problem. Because some people like to spend a lot of time on that strategy. And that's not a bad thing. I do think it's a good idea to have a well-formed strategy and well-thought-through strategy. The problem usually comes when people expect perfectionism in executing that strategy. So, they expect perfection in every piece of content and

There are many approaches to getting things done and cultivating productive habits. But not all of them work. Not all of them will support you in accomplishing what you’ve set out to do. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares about his recent reading of The ONE Thing by Gary Keller. 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 – Why David didn’t get around to The ONE Thing until now 01:15 – Exploring productivity resources 01:45 – Getting back on track 02:15 – The psychological impact of a long to-do list 03:14 – A new practice that has worked for David 04:00 – Thinking about what one thing would make all others insignificant 04:28 – The impact of task switching 05:21 – A new approach to productivity 06:11 – Should you read The ONE Thing? Transcript: Coming soon.

We are all the captains of our destinies. The challenge is that, at times, we don’t want to steer that ship. We’d rather leave it to someone else or stick our heads in the sand and wait. Should we be surprised when our ship capsizes, especially when we leave it to chance? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares what he’s noticed about the most effective leaders. Remember – in your artistic career, you are already a leader. 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 – A commonality among the most effective leaders 00:37 – We all have circumstances 01:45 – A choice in how we respond 02:14 – Effective leaders don’t let their circumstances dictate their commitments 03:06 – Problem-solving 04:03 – Not looking for sympathy 04:56 – Developing your leadership 05:20 – Showing up Transcript: Today I wanted to share about commonality I've seen among the most effective leaders that I know. As you may know, I've been part of a two-year intensive leadership program. I'm in the second year in the third quarter, so basically one more quarter to go as we speak. Here's one truth that nobody can seem to escape is that we all have circumstances. Things come up in life. And they always seem to come up when we're committed to something. It's almost as if the commitment itself is being tested. And we can either respond to it in a way that will allow us to continue to be true to the commitment that we've made, but it's also the crossroads at which a lot of people take the other path and give up and don't continue on, and choose not to fulfill all the commitments they've made to themselves. You often hear people say, “Oh, it's just too hard. It's too hard.” So, they don't do it. And, oftentimes, all that was required was perseverance from them, but something took them out, right? It could have been a breakup, it could have been an illness, it could have been a car accident, it literally could have been anything. I think in some cases it could literally be spilled milk and some people would be taken out by that. They go, “There's spilled milk on the floor and that's the needle that broke the camel's back.” And I think here's the thing that we sometimes miss completely that we have a choice in almost everything. If we're tired, we should sleep. If we're sick, we should manage our well being. If we're hungry, we should go eat. And if we can't figure out where and how to fit these things in, it's usually a matter of planning and prioritization, and not a matter of, “Oh, I can't fit it in because there's not enough time.” Time being democratic, we all have the same 24 hours in a day. So effective leaders don't let their circumstances dictate their actions and commitments. If for some reason they're not able to fulfill on the commitments they've made, then they will be in communication about that fact as early as possible. Effective leaders don't let their circumstances dictate their actions and commitments.Share on X And if there's no way to reschedule the deadline or event or project or whatever it may be, then it's about making reparations then and there. It could be anything. It could be a gift card. It could be sending the client flowers. It could be apologizing. But something is done then and there to repair the situation so it's not lingering for anyone and it's complete. So, the best leaders follow up and follow through on the things that they've committed to. Their circumstances don't dictate it. They find a way that has it work. And if it absolutely doesn't work, like, if you were planning to be on a Zoom call, and your computer broke down, and your laptop broke down, and your tablet broke down, and you smashed your smartphone, you could still go to the library. The best leaders follow up and follow through on the things that they've committed to.Share on X But if your car broke down, you could still go to the neighbors and request to use their computer for half an hour. Sure, it might be weird, but in the world of problem solving, that is the best way to think about it. So, in most scenarios, not in every… There are scenarios that are excusable. There are scenarios that are far outside of your control that you could do nothing about. But it overwhelmingly in most situations, you can choose to find a way or you can give up. So, the most effective leaders, they may share about their circumstances. They don't necessarily share them to get sympathy or empathy from people. They say it as a matter of fact, because that is the what is so, that is what's occurring in the world, that is what's happening in their world, but they're not making a lot of story and significance and me

We are all building on the work others have done in some capacity. The question is – do we notice when this is happening? Do we thank or acknowledge others when we’ve modeled or iterated on their work? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David prompts us to think about giving credit where it’s due. 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 – There’s no growth in unicorns farting rainbows 00:44 – Giving without expecting anything in return 01:22 – Acknowledgement as a practice 02:53 – Co-opting the work of the trailblazers who’ve gone before you Transcript: Today I wanted to talk about something that may not be entirely comfortable. And if we want to grow, we can't always be talking about unicorns farting rainbows. It's great to envision a future that you want to create and then to be as enthusiastic as you possibly can about it. But that's not necessarily where the growth is. The growth is usually in the breakdowns and the resulting breakthroughs. And you can find those breakthroughs rapidly if you get good at it. The thing that I've noticed is this – there's a lot of things I do without ever expecting anything in return. I give to charitable organizations. I support certain creators that I like, as I'm sure you do. I give people in my life a lot of time and space to talk and work out their problems and share with me what's going on in their lives. And I practice conversational generosity, something Dale Carnegie talks about in How to Win Friends and Influence People. There are many things I do from a generous spirit, and I'm not looking for anything in return. But then there are also situations where I am expecting something. Maybe not a lot, but I'm still expecting some kind of courtesy or favor to be returned. And the interesting part is… if you go into any of my books, in the back, you will inevitably see a long list of people that I thank. I may not be personally connected to them. I may not have ever met them in real life and shaken their hand. And yet, I've learned a lot from these people. Even in The New Music Industry, you can see me thanking people like Bob Baker, Tom Hess, Ariel Hyatt, and Derek Sivers. These are people that I looked up to, and still do, in many ways. I learned so much from them, and I find they've added a lot of value to my life. And they've added a lot of value to me in my career pursuits, and my business pursuits. Everything that I've done to this point. And yet, What I'm seeing out there is… I'm in touch with pretty much every podcast that I've ever been mentioned on, which is not many. And I could even recall a circumstance where, it's not the guy's fault, but he was sitting there going like, “Yeah, dang, I can't remember his name.” Look, we're all human. That happens to me, too. I've given as much credit as I possibly can to all the people that I could possibly remember or think of that contributed to me. And yet I probably have still forgotten. And, and I think that's where we got to let bygones be bygones, right? But there are people who've literally built on the things that I've done, whether it's my books, my blog posts, or my podcast, and some have built on it without knowing it, right? If they don't know it there's nothing, we can do about it. But others have very knowingly built on something that I created. And it's good. I want to see iterations on what else people come up with. Better music books for musicians, better coaching programs, better podcasts, or better business models. I'd love to see all that, right? And yet this is where I give thanks to every single author, speaker, coach, mentor, blogger, podcaster, YouTuber that I can think of that's contributed to me. And those people don't so much as thank anyone, let alone me, for building upon something that I worked my butt off to do. It's not like I got started yesterday. Some people get that confused, like, “Oh, you started your podcast in 2016, that must feel like a while.” No, no, no. I started podcasting in 2009. And I started doing interviews in 2004. Even before that, I was already starting to serve musicians in a local community capacity. Okay? So, it's not like this just emerged out of nowhere. This has been a passion and an interest, something that I've pursued over the long haul. I've really invested myself into this. So, I didn't just spring up yesterday. And yet I think some people have built on what I've done without ever sending so much as a thank you note. That would be unimaginable to me. Just saying. For me, that would be unimaginable. I would even suspect people are owing me royalties. I'm not asking for any money. Right? That's not why we're i

What does it take to pursue a music career? What does the financial outlay look like? How do you navigate the veritable minefield that is the music industry? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David passes the mic with singer, guitarist, band leader, and hair stylist Jody Lubin. 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 – Today’s guest, Jody Lubin 00:34 – “Creativity Excitement Emotion” is Jody’s idea 00:51 – The music distribution minefield and music industry frustrations 05:13 – Streaming royalties and making an income in music 06:54 – Thinking about monetization and audience differently 08:45 – Finding the right music producer 11:38 – Applying for funding 13:46 – What is music supposed to cost? 16:52 – Is the music industry funded by venture capitalists? 17:22 – Televised talent competitions 20:27 – The technological divide 23:10 – Taking on music in your 40s 27:00 – Jody’s story 32:09 – David’s search for the perfect electric guitar 33:27 – Jody’s red guitar 34:44 – Clean Slate 36:41 – Community building 37:41 – Costs of putting on a show 38:43 – Gaining your independence 39:21 – Wrapping up Transcript: Coming soon.

We live in a TikTok world. We assume everything will be short. We think everything will be quick and easy. We hope to get the maximum possible value out of something without having put our best foot forward. But is this realistic? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David explores the importance of context in an increasingly contextless world. 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 – Building a library of social media content 00:51 – The issue with clips and snippets 01:42 – Politics 03:21 – Do you live life in soundbites? 04:09 – What do you hope to achieve by responding to things you don’t like? 04:36 – Could you redirect your frustrated energy elsewhere? 06:01 – Does the statement fit with the person posting? 06:35 – Not everything lends itself to short-form content 07:04 – Being more intentional Transcript: When you've been doing social media for a while, after a while, you kind of get smart with it. And so, you start building a catalog or a library of content that you can pull from. The more you have, the better, especially if you know that you're I have a tweet library. I have a couple of tweet libraries depending on which account I'm looking to grow, but a lot of this content was built over time, and it's been pulled from blog posts and podcast episodes and videos and other content that I've produced over the years. And we kind of live in a world that encourages snippets and tidbits and soundbites and all that kind of stuff. Which means people are liable to respond to the content in whatever way they choose to respond or feel like responding to. That can mean that there can also be a lot of knee jerk reactions. I know I'm not the only one that gets this. In fact, it’s the top marketers or entrepreneurs – some I look up to, some I don't but that's kind of beside the point – you get criticism too, right? And this is not about responding to the specific comment I got. I wanted to ask a few questions to everyone listening. Look in your own life where maybe you're at effect where you really could be in power. The tweet that got responded to is around politics. And of course, as they say, if there's one thing not to talk about at the dinner table, it's politics. But in effect, it said “A lot of people are quick to blame politicians without even looking at themselves.” For me, anyway, there's a deeper context to that, and I can easily see how you could respond to that in probably dozens, if not hundreds, of different ways. But when I look at that, I'm thinking like I may not be responsible for wars that have happened across the world, or I may not be responsible for natural disasters, and I guess nobody really is responsible for those, but let's just say, you know, massive catastrophes couldn't necessarily be tied back to me, specifically. And yet there are things about me… like if we were to trust these personal development books that we all engage in, that everything reflects who we are, and when we look out into the world, we find what we are. And we attract what we are. So, if all we're seeing is devastation then what part of us is that channeling? That's what that quote would mean to me, but… again, the content of the response doesn't matter that much, but if I was summarizing one of the responses I got was, in effect, “Are you saying that I could cause a minor mishap in my own life that could lead to massive catastrophe across the world?” In our fast-paced, tidbit-, snippet-oriented kind of world, there are a few questions that I think you need to begin asking yourself. The first question is, do you live life in soundbites? I understand well the tendency to want to respond in a knee jerk kind of way to things that come up, right? Do you live life in soundbites?Share on X I really do, because sometimes I'll see comments that I completely don't agree with and may be inclined to type something in, even if just to be a troll, but I usually reserve my opinion and hold stuff back because I'm like, “Well, what's that going to do?” Right? So, the question is are you willing and do you as a habit choose to go deeper into those subjects before deciding how you feel about them? Are you willing to go deeper into subjects before deciding how you feel about them?Share on X Because how you feel about them is not everything. It's not objective necessarily, or even subjective reality. The next thing would be what are you hoping to achieve by responding to things you don't like, don't agree with, can't see the full viewpoint of, or not willing to dig deeper into? Are you just going to stay at a shallow level, or a at some point, are you going to dig deeper into the subject? And if so, then maybe reserving your judgment and coming back t

Most of us go into fresh endeavors with the BEST of intentions. But that doesn’t mean we won’t eventually burn out on a project, no matter how enthusiastic we initially were. Staying in the project is usually doing a disservice to you, and the people who are involved. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares what to do when you lose your passion for a project. 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 – How artists choose what they want to work on 01:05 – David on starting Music Entrepreneur HQ 03:42 – The evolution of Music Entrepreneur HQ 05:44 – Burned out on an idea 06:20 – Giving too much of yourself 07:17 – Examining your options 08:00 – One of the secrets of life 09:00 – Don’t be afraid to switch Transcript: In life, we'll usually choose the things that we're most excited about working on, especially when it comes to our creativity. We might choose jobs for the sake of money, or we might choose certain activities for the sake of other desirable objects and things. But for the most part, we choose what we want to do because it's what we're most excited about. The thing that we're not always tuned into, that we're not always as accountable as we should be for, is when we lose excitement for something… and this happens more often than you might think… You might be excited out of your mind today to work on a specific project. But you don't necessarily know how you're going to feel about it a few years down the line. Case in point, I started Music Entrepreneur HQ around 2016, but it has its roots in something I created way back in 2009. And even before I moved it to Music Entrepreneur HQ, it was already called The Music Entrepreneur. I was especially excited about this idea in 2011, and 2012 when I was discovering network marketing and realizing there was something was missing in my education, and no doubt in the education of other musicians looking to build a successful career, and that is entrepreneurship. We are entrepreneurs as creatives, and the sooner we can embrace this fact, the sooner we can begin to take ownership and power over our careers. When you have power over your career, you start making decisions, and you take it upon yourself to find pathways that are going to work for you. But you must embrace it. Find the pathways that are going to work for you.Share on X And it doesn't have to be entrepreneurship specifically, but until you embrace the moment that you're responsible and you're capable and you can find a way, you tend not to look for it. So, I was excited about introducing this to the world and sharing it with others because I knew it could add value. And I found that within a really short amount of time, other skilled marketers were able to do it far better than I was. And I guess they were just poised for the opportunity. I don't think I was doing it badly at all. I do need to give myself credit where it's due, but there were certainly other marketers who were like, “Oh, I know how to take this to the next level.” So, my vantage point was “I'm jumping into a blue ocean,” or close to a blue ocean by getting into music entrepreneurship. Versus just talking about how to be a better independent musician, which is all that people were talking about back then, as far as I could find. I was jumping into an ocean that was relatively clear. Within a short amount of time, it started turning into a red ocean. Now, is that a reason to get in or get out? Not necessarily, because you can always be the category leader. And if you can rise to be the category leader, you might as well stay in it because your name and the things that you create are going to become associated with what you've established. Your brand is practically going to become synonymous with the name of your company or possibly the name of your product. But things were going well for me for several years. I remained excited about what I was up to in 2012, 2013. 2014 I felt like things were going backward a bit, but maybe that's because I didn't choose to leave another project that was no longer truly in alignment with who I was, which was network marketing. I still think it's an amazing industry with beautiful people and cool opportunities. It just wasn't going to work for me, at least not the 2014 version of me. But I ended up redirecting a lot of those energies of “Ah man, I chose wrong and I can't believe I did that and I'm not a person of integrity and I'm never going to be a great leader.” I redirected all that into my book and that created new life and new enthusiasm for the project because The New Music Industry book went on to become the best-selling of anything I'd produced. I'd produced countless eBooks, some audio programs, and other product

For ambitious artists, waiting on the sidelines hoping for the right opportunity is NOT an option. Creating the life you love through your creativity will require that you stretch beyond what you think you’re comfortable with right now. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why you need to make a mess now, and what you can do to clean it up after the fact (if you even need to!). 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 – Why you should make a mess in your career and life 01:26 – Freeing yourself from the domain of “good” or “bad” 02:41 – What it looks like to make a mess 05:51 – Declaring the incomplete, complete 06:17 – Turn to a mentor or coach for help 07:00 – Building your “mess muscle” 07:27 – Look at what needs to be cleaned up, and clean it up! 07:57 – Determine what you will continue to do, and what you won’t Transcript: Today we get to talk about making a mess. And I am an advocate for going and making a mess in your music career and frankly, even in your life, in your projects, in romance and practically every area of life where you want to begin to see results. Here's the thing. We only live once. Sure. If we were to think in terms of abstraction or spirituality, we probably do live forever in some way, shape, or form. Maybe we're spirits, maybe we get reincarnated, maybe there's an afterlife. But as far as this life is concerned, the one that you are living right now, this one, this opportunity… It won't come around again. And that being the case, if we sit on the sidelines and wait and watch and observe as though we are watching TV or YouTube or Netflix, which is pretty much what smartphones and social media and TV and movies are training us to do, we don't get to enjoy all the exploits and spoils that are available. If we sit on the sidelines and wait and watch and observe as though we are watching YouTube, we won't get to enjoy the spoils that are available.Share on X Now, I understand that making a mess can be scary, it can be uncomfortable, it can also be very confronting, so we are going to talk about some of the ways to deal with conflict, to deal with rejection, to deal with anything else that comes up along the way that doesn't strike you as being “good,” and understand first and foremost that whatever is good or bad is a label that we create. It's a meaning that we've been trained to assign. Everything is supposed to be good and bad and divided into like, don't like, right, wrong, like it, don't like it. Everything tends to go into that category when we're not aware of it. So, we can easily end up creating stories around what is good or bad. The point is you're going to get results and that's exciting, isn't it? I mean, it's much better than life at a standstill. Your music career at a standstill, your romantic life at a standstill. Nothing's happening. So, you assume you're wrong, you assume you're bad, you assume you're not attractive. You assume you're being rejected by everyone, and that's your reality, and you're stuck there. And maybe, the truth is, if you took a few more chances, that would not be your reality at all. So, what is going and making a mess look like? Well, in your music career, it could look like instead of just making a list of venues to call, calling those venues, making an unreasonable goal to call 20, 30, 40 venues a day, and figuring out which ones are going to say “yes” to you. In dating, it could look like sending more messages. Joining Facebook dating, joining Match, joining Tinder. People have so much going on about, “Well, I want it to be casual,” or “Well, I don't want it to be casual,” or “I'm really not sure what I want but I'm here because I think I want something.” Stop it. You don't know what anything has the potential to turn into before you're in it. People get hurt in the things that they're in. They don't get hurt in the things that they're out of. I mean, sure, rejection can hurt. But much of what we think is rejection is perceived rejection. We're alone and lonely, so we assume that we're being rejected when reality might dictate otherwise. It could just be that you're not taking a chance and no one around you is taking a chance to express their true feelings and to be authentic. You don't have to make this complicated at all. You could just have one funny one-liner. Not a pickup line, a one liner. Something funny or something curiosity invoking. You don't have to come up with a million lines. You only need one. You just need some kind of icebreaker or some kind of opener to get the conversation started and you can take it wherever you want from there. In your projects, create a whole mess of conversati

Growth can be a funny thing. People all grow at different rates. Some people spend more time studying and investing in their personal and career growth. Others do not prioritize it. Yet, it is very hard to predict who is going to grow the fastest. There is much to be learned from life experiences AND personal development materials. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares the story of how he came to see that he may have outgrown the leadership program he was in. 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 – A rare occurrence 01:42 – Business plan and social media presentations 05:09 – Praise for the presentations 06:42 – Outgrowing the program? 10:08 – Tapping into teamwork 11:21 – There’s always more to get 12:03 – When it’s time to move on Transcript: I think what we're talking about today is a relatively rare occurrence – when you've outgrown the program. I've mentioned before how I've been taking a leadership program, a two-year intensive one. I'm in year two, quarter three, which means I've got about a quarter and a half, and I'll be completing this program. It's been great. I've had the opportunity to coach in a variety of capacities. When you're in the second year of the program, you automatically get a certain number of participants to coach each week. And so, I've learned so much, I've gained so much, and I think the biggest discovery of all is just how much value I can provide for people. Sometimes the stats are not validating. Sometimes your social media following doesn't look like you think it should. Sometimes your email list is not as big as you hoped it was. And still, as I've said so many times before, just because it looks like you're killing it doesn't mean you're making any money. And just because you look like you're small-time doesn't mean you're not killing it. Just because it looks like you're killing it doesn't mean you're making any money. And just because you look like you're small-time doesn't mean you're not killing it.Share on X That is a reality we all need to embrace when we're looking online because we can easily be fooled and convinced by numbers that, in fact, probably don't mean a whole lot. So, today, in this leadership program, I gave a presentation on business plans and social media. Two areas in which I'm very conversant. As you know, I've certainly had my peaks and valleys with social media. I'm very much on top of it nowadays, knowing that I think that's really where the traffic is going more than ever. You have to have a website. You have to have something to capture people's contact information, to get them on your list so you can continue to market to them and sell to them. That has not changed one bit. But what has changed is where the eyeballs are. And more than ever, I would say, eyeballs are on social media. And more than ever, there are more platforms than ever. So, I was happy to give presentations on the business plan side and the social media side because I don't always get the opportunity. It's not like I get invites every single day to speak. It happens, but it's not a daily occurrence. And I think what I've realized about that side of things is I want to create my event. And that's coming. We'll talk about that in a future show, I'm sure, as things get going on that end. But I was like, “I relish the opportunity to share some of what I’ve learned. And this was kind of spreading through word of mouth. In the case of the business plan, I'd recently put together one for a client, and she was so happy with it, and I was so happy with it, that she ended up sharing it with a lot of people in the leadership program. And suddenly, before you know it, it's like, “Well, David Andrew is very knowledgeable on business plans.” And on the social media side, well, another person in the leadership program was keeping an eye on what I've been posting to social media, and she realized right away, like, “Holy cow, you know, what you just posted in the last couple of weeks has me convinced that you know social media better than most people,” which is the case. So, I've put together these presentations and it was a funny situation because we were going to make it sort of an official, like it counts for points. Every week people are supposed to get some training in this leadership program and so at least a block of three hours every week they're supposed to go and take a training. Originally, we were going to count this session where I was giving these presentations for a point, and then the people in the program management decided, “No, that's not going to work.” And I said, “Look, it doesn

Life may be a wild roller-coaster ride, but that doesn’t mean you want to stall out due to poor management of health, addictions, or lack of self-confidence. In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David explains why your well-being is the personal foundation you need to build upon, especially if you have lofty ambitions. 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 – If you’re not okay, your music career is not okay 00:43 – Scarcity mindset 01:19 – Low self-image 02:05 – Mental health issues 02:51 – When you’re not well, it will impact your ability to make forward progress 03:42 – What can you do to ensure you’re in good health? Transcript: If you're not okay, your music career isn't okay either. It sounds obvious, right? Like, if you're sick, or if you're burnt out, you can't keep churning out the hits, and you can't show up to your next gig, naturally that is going to affect your music career. But there are some further-reaching consequences that you might not be mindful of. Let's say, for example, that you're stuck in a scarcity mindset. This is something that happens to everyone. You can't see the possibilities. So, you're stuck playing the same gigs. Or you're playing even fewer gigs because you are so constrained in how you're thinking about things. You're not seeing the opportunities outside your city. You're not seeing opportunities for alternative venues. You're not seeing opportunities to open for other bands. And because you're in such a scarcity mindset, those opportunities may exist, but for you, they don't exist because you're not in abundance thinking. Another area where it could impact your career. Let's say that your self-confidence or your self-image is low, again, this is something that happens to everybody. Even the most talented, confident, good-looking, funny people out there sometimes don't feel that good about themselves. That unfortunately is going to be reflected in your music career as well. So, you're not going to go for bigger gigs. You're not going to go for bigger opportunities. You're going to cut yourself short. Even the most talented, confident, good-looking, funny people out there sometimes don't feel that good about themselves.Share on X You're not going to give yourself the full credit that you deserve as a player, as a musician, or as a touring artist, whatever it is that you're up to. You're probably not going to see yourself taking chances you should be taking if you're suffering from low self-esteem. Let's say you're working through some mental health issues. Again, this is something that can affect just about anyone, really without warning, or without really knowing what's going on. This is another one of those things that can certainly affect anyone at any time. Many people out there either present stable or are pretty stable most of the time. But we are artists, and especially when events like the COVID pandemic happened, a lot of people were not feeling very well about that situation. Weirdly, some people kind of loved it, loved that alone time, loved that time of being able to think, of being able to work on projects they enjoyed. But that wasn't everyone, right? We know that because there were people who took their own lives during that time. If you're not well, naturally it's going to impact your ability to do things that you would normally be able to do. I know this well. I've gone through adrenal fatigue. I've gotten through something resembling depression. We'll call it sadness because I don't think I have clinical depression, and my naturopath would not call it that. So, we'll call it sadness, but I've been through that. I've been through anxiety as well. It did impact my ability to be able to do things that I wanted to do to further my career or business. With adrenal fatigue, you're almost like waking up in a haze every single day. Unless you know the right steps to take, of course. Then you're able to get out of it relatively quickly. But otherwise, you're waking up in a haze every day and not feeling motivated or energetic. You can still get things done, but it feels that much harder to be able to go and do them. So, if you're not okay, your music career is not okay, it's just as simple as that. What could you be doing proactively to ensure that you're in good health? Not just physically, but mentally. What could you be doing to ensure that you're well-prepared for opportunities that count? That you're well rested for when you film a video, or you're energetic for when you need to hit the stage. What could you be doing to ensure that you're well-prepared f

How would you live your life if you could live it any way you wanted to? How would you spend your time? What would you be doing with it? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares why he decided to script his ideal day, and how you can script your own. 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 – Why David created his ideal day 02:26 – David’s ideal day, fully scripted 08:38 – Why David would opt to work nine and half hours per day 09:20 – Other essential activities David would engage in 10:53 – How would you script your ideal day? Transcript: I just finished drawing up in my notebook what I'm calling my ideal day. Now, I'm not being patronizing. I'm sure you understand what we're talking about when I say setting up your ideal day. So, Let's talk about why I put this together and I would encourage you to put together your own, even as you're listening, if you can do so, get your notebook out. White paper and blue pen. That's what I believe in. Things have been going well for me with the music writing. They have for years. A lot of my work has come through that. People read my articles and sometimes check out my music, and people read my articles and sometimes request me to write lyrics. There are all sorts of opportunities that have opened up because of my music writing and they continue to open because of it. And even though AI has changed the game or seemingly changing the game and people can now put together content faster than ever before, the reality is… Right now, anyway, maybe not in the future, it still requires human input to put together something true and good quality to share with an audience. My community projects are still going well, and I do have some things going on with the graphic and web design as well. I am a webmaster, too, since I manage many websites. But as I look to the future of what I want to create, I realize that there are some things that I would very much like to change in my life, and that's what got me thinking about, what would I do. What would my day look like if I were to create it outside of all my current obligations and commitments, which are important? But some of them will one day come to an end, many of them, I mean all of them will come to an end at some point. But I'm just saying that some of my current commitments have expiration dates. So, what would I be doing with my time daily, discipline-wise and work-wise, if I was free to choose and create however I wanted to create it? Here's what I came up with: I would spend 30 minutes writing songs, and songwriting. I think that would be more than enough time. I'm always looking at consistency, right? So, I'm not thinking about, “Oh, you know, today I need to spend eight hours writing songs.” No, if I spent 30 minutes a day, either organizing, managing, building on the songs that I already have, or drawing up new ideas, I would have more than enough music. I do have more than enough music right now to last me a good long while if I were to release it, whether in pieces or albums. And I would spend 60 minutes recording. Inevitably, this is much more effort and time than expected. I think most days, it's almost like you must be well-rested if you want to record well. You want to show up confident. It's almost like the microphones, or the inputs know when you're not feeling your best. And when you show up that way to record, you just don't do your best takes. But if I spent 60 minutes per day producing and making music, I would complete and release more projects. I would spend another hour writing my next book. I've got multiple book projects, and as I've probably shared before, many of them are nearing completion. And while I do have kind of my focus right now on the Productivity, Performance & Profits Blackbook, I don't think it would be completely out of line to create some pre-orders for the other books that I'm not necessarily planning on creating anything more out of in the immediate future. I’ve got to maintain my focus on one book at a time. I'm honestly looking now, like maybe this could be a three-year plan. In the past, my product launches were maybe every 90 days. And, and while that 90-day system is a great thing to adopt. You'd almost want to be thinking more in terms of what project could I then complete in 90 days, what's the first marketing channel I could add in the next 90 days, and then what marketing channel could be added next? Thinking more in terms of how to amplify, enhance, and grow the thing that you've created would be a better use of your time. This is something marketers do poorly, but musicians do well. We tour the crap out of our material. Musicians get a huge runway out of the music they create. Think of KISS,

David was once convinced that the only way to make it to the top of your respective niche of the music industry was to be or to become a driven leader type. But he’s recently seen things from a new perspective. So, can you make your music career dreams a reality without being a natural leader? In this episode of Creativity Excitement Emotion, David shares his latest insights into growing your music 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: 00:00 – Two ways to make it to the top 00:54 – Qualities of a driven leader 01:10 – #1: They’re quick to turn vision into reality 01:59 – #2: They’re always looking ahead 03:22 – #3: They’re always readers 04:45 – What if you don’t possess these qualities? Transcript: So, you've heard me talk about the importance of developing your leadership in building a music career. There's no harm in anyone learning leadership principles, even if they don't one day become a leader. But what I'm recognizing is that there are two ways to make it to the top. There isn't just one, and not everyone is a driven leader type. They just aren't. So, more and more I'm recognizing there isn't just one way. One way is to be a driven leader. But another way… Well, we're going to cover that in this episode. So, let's talk about the qualities of a driven leader. What does that look like? You know, a driven leader has many qualities, so I can't cover them all here, but I'll touch on three things that would characterize someone who's very driven. First, they're quick to go from vision to reality. They're able to take a vision and move it to reality rapidly. It's almost like they have an idea and snap, six months later, there it is. Leaders are able to take a vision and move it to reality rapidly.Share on X Maybe it's an idea for an EP or a song. Maybe it's an entire album. Probably in six months, I'd say they'd be able to complete an album because they're just that driven, and chances are they've got experiences and skills to back up that as well. And one of the reasons they're able to go from vision to reality so quickly is because they're able to harness their energy and focus. Focus and concentrate on the thing that they want to accomplish. Not just starting it but completing it. Finishing it. Next, they're always looking ahead. A leader is tuned in to the needs of others, the needs of themselves, the needs of their company or business, and the needs of their career. So, they aren't just thinking about the things that they need to do now or complete now. Most of us end up focusing there. Leaders are creating charts and graphs, and they have the statistics, and they're aware of the next steps to take. If something’s not working, their mind is already into next week or next month or next year going, “This thing isn't working, we need to stop this now.” And if something is working, they're already going, “Oh, here's how we can boost our performance next week.” And because they take responsibility for others, they’re anticipating the needs of others. They aren't just thinking about themselves. They're going, “Okay, this person is in this state of mind right now. Because of that, they might need this resource to be able to be at optimal performance. Or “This team member may need to go on vacation in a couple of weeks because it's starting to look like they're a little burnt out and I've given them a little too much work.” Leaders anticipate the needs of others.Share on X So, leaders are always, always, always looking ahead. They're not just present in what's going on now, they're present in factors that are going to be affecting things in the weeks, and months to come. Next, leaders are always readers. And I know some of you don't take this seriously, but I do. I don't just listen to audio, although I think that’s great if you're listening to audiobooks, podcasts, and audio programs. I also like to turn all the courses that I've purchased into audio that I can go and listen to on my phone in my car. But you know, leaders self-educate themselves in a variety of ways. They don't just listen to audio because they know there's intense and immense value in reading as well. So, I always read. I like to read. Sometimes I don't get to read as much as I would like to read, but I still read all the time. And you could be the worst at reading in the world. And that's okay. All you must do is read two pages per day. Make sure whatever bookmark you're using moves to the next page every single day. That's all you’ve got to do. If you're not sure what to read, we've suggested many books through the years, including my own. You might