045 – The Vehicle That Gets You There

Creativity Excitement Emotion

Mar 12 2024 • 6 mins

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.Click To Tweet 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.