Balancing Act: How to Establish Good Priorities.
The contents of this blog might be one of the most important set of ideas that I’ll ever put forth into the world. And after having spent an inordinate amount of time wrestling with these thoughts, I now feel comfortable enough to stand behind them…starting with the notion that now is the time to audit our blueprints for survival and success, so as to assess how well they really served us in the past, and how well they’ll serve us in the future.
As I’ve mentioned in several other blog posts, this idea of mission and terrain really helps to simplify our thinking, as they ask “what needs to be done,” and “where does it need to be done at, and what are the obstacles that need to be addressed?” So here’s what I think is the magic syllabus that we’ve all been looking for this whole time.
Mission
To sustain human existence.
Terrain
Where does it need to be done: Global Market Economy (unless you live off the grid)
Obstacles to overcome: Create a great relationship with yourself, friends, family, and loves ones; find a financial vehicle that supports that; teach someone else how to do these two steps.
One of the top questions on everyone’s mind always comes down to how to maintain the right work/life balance. But because balance requires at least two points, most people never develop a sense of balance because they’ve never really asked themselves “what do I want, and when do I want it.” Which, at the end of the day, is simply a pacing issue, as I don’t believe that anyone is adverse to hard work. I do, however, believe that like running a race, most people’s commitment level towards something is based upon their belief about their ability to finish on time. For example, if you bet someone that they couldn’t run across a street in under 30 seconds, anyone would take that bet. But if you bet someone to run a mile in under 6 minutes, most people would opt out after a simple physical (and sometimes ego-centric) cost-benefit analysis on whether it’s worth it. So again, this is a pacing issue, because no one wants to enter a race if they feel they can’t go the distance. But if you can see the path you need to take, and the sacrifices make sense based upon your timeline, then it makes it easier to go all in on your goals, as well as to articulate to others why your balancing act looks the way it does. Which ironically enough, might make it easier for people to then imagine how they can help you along your journey.
With the first half of the terrain issue (i.e. pacing) having now been established, the second relates to the narrative that says that our value begins at a job (i.e. “obstacles to overcome”). Don’t get me wrong, jobs are fine. However, for anyone reading this, at no point during your time in the educational system did you have the message marketed to you that the function of school was to help you to learn how to become financially independent and/or how to own a business. The message was marketed as “you need to get a good education so you can hopefully land a good job with good benefits.” More importantly, no serious discussions were ever had on how to diversify your imagination for what a sustainable lifestyle could look like in different parts of the world. Instead, what most of us learned was how to land a full-time job that’ll probably only support a part-time lifestyle. So again, because little to NO conversation is ever had about how to prepare oneself for different types of lifestyles, is why the idea of “lifestyle” is treated so tangentially to the predominate conversations around employment. Which is ironic, because the main reason why we work is to earn money to fund the type of idyllic lifestyle we think we’ll be satisfied with. So when I see people, especially in the arts, who say they love what they do, yet their strategy isn’t moving them towards their non-specific “lifestyle,” it’s like watching a wolf bleed out from the tongue after licking their wounded foot, even though it's caught in a double-sided bladed snare. They’re literally killing themselves without even knowing it, and that’s tragic.
With this new downturn in the economy, it has forced people to contend with the underlying fears that have always been there but are now on front street. And that fear is telling them “what happens to the value of your profession when the marketplace has rendered it non-essential?” Furthermore, when your value is based upon what you do, and not the lifestyle you’ve been able to create for yourself and family, that fear will lead you to believe that your intrinsic value is only as high or useful as the marketplace says you occupation is. So for us musicians, now is a perfect time to reassess the story we told ourselves years ago about why we REALLY wanted to do what we do. For many, I believe they thought that it would be a great way to make some pseudo easy money from doing what they’ve always done. But the realities are that the music business, like any business, exists to make money. So it makes sense to me that an artist learn to see themselves like a business if they want to stay in the game a while. Besides, given all the stories in history where ones artistic vision was squelched by the vision of someone else who had some kind of financial leverage over them, makes me think that it makes more sense to initially bootstrap your “business” through a job so that you can avoid “taking out loans” to get your artistic voice out there on your own terms. So if your job is your plan A, then your music career is your plan B. And if you’re still motivated after work to work on honing your skills, then it goes to show that you might have what it takes to go the distance, should you choose to eventually make your plan B your plan A.
In wrapping this up, the obstacle to overcome for a musician (but is really applicable to everyone) is simply the ability to generate the requisite amount of money needed to fund a lifestyle that affords you the ability to schedule music in your life however you see fit. So if you can get a job that pays you well enough, and allots you the free time to keep growing as a musician, then perhaps that’s a good fit for you. But again, you’ll never know which financial vehicle will serve you best for getting you to your lifestyle destination if you don’t know what that destination even looks like. Which, of course, will inform you of how long it should realistically take to get there.
Suggested takeaways…
a) One of the best ways to know if you’re really serious about music is to get a job that pays the bills. If you do, yet you’re still anxious to practice after work, then you probably have what it takes to eventually go the distance with music full time. So again, when your basic financial needs are being met, you can be more strategic with how you invest your time, energy, and resources into music. But without a financial cushion, you may find your time stretched in more ways than you care to have it stretched, all because you can’t afford to say NO to the gigs that add little value to you, either musically or financially.
b) None of anything I’ve mentioned will mean anything unless you map out in great detail the vision you have for your lifestyle, and how much it’s going to cost you, both financially and within your typical habits and routines.
c) The legacy of every artist is predicated upon their point of view. And that POV is only as valuable as the number of people that adopt it. So when we know how we want to interact with them, it’ll also color how we think to construct our lifestyle. After all, unless you’re a hermit, what good is creating a lifestyle that you can’t share with anyone else?