I was sitting on an airplane a long time ago, chatting with a businessman. After our journey getting to know each other a bit, he said something to me that has stuck with me over the years. His parting words were, “you have an entrepreneurial heart and you need to use it or it will bite you in the ass one day”.
Hmmmmmmmm…
Recording Session – Photo Credit Al Kay
Over those years I came to realize that every musician is an entrepreneur or needs to develop those skills. We play music contracting our services out to others. We teach, contracting our skills to universities, conservatories, privately. We run a business and that business is us. We are the product, the management, the accountant, the marketing director, the CEO, etc.. Yet, few musicians think this way or learn how to be better at it.
I was inspired to write this blog from an article I received in the mail the other day. Nine Canadian entrepreneurs were interviewed to get their opinions on what it takes to run a successful start-up business. Here are their top three recommendations: Have a vision, Be Stubborn, and Embrace failure. Having a vision is where my course comes in. Having a clear vision of where you are going is the No.1 step to success. Many feel they can create this vision on their own – how hard can it be? But believe me, this is a process that you need help with. You need someone to feed back to you where you say you want to be and then to really dig into clarity around those goals.
Start with having a vision, getting stubborn and embracing failure ( how we learn best and fastest!)