Lesson 2 – Challenge Yourself to Succeed

It’s a well known fact in any field that without goals it is very difficult to get anywhere. If you don’t know what you are striving for you can find yourself running at full speed in randomly changing directions and not liking or even recognising what you find, or even worse, not moving forward at all.

Earlier this month I sent a lengthy email to my cousin Seamus in Melbourne detailing a business proposition for a new joint venture. Seamus and I have been in closer touch in the last year than ever before in our lives, largely thanks to the two of us being the most nerdy and social-media-connected fellows in our extended family. Seamus and I have never lived in the same city really, at least not since I was quite little. Seamus is ten years my senior and has been a musician his whole life like me. In fact, as you might have read on my Quick Brown Fox webpage, it was his band RECKONING in the early 90s that exposed me to my first rock concert and inspired me to be a musician.

I had only just started playing trumpet, but didn’t really know why I wanted to play music other than the fact that it would make me look cool and get me all the chicks (a very big concern for an 8 year old). When I went to Seamus’ show with Reckoning in the city of Adelaide, I saw him perform like some kind of writhing, possessed guru of indie rock in his tight leather pants and symmetrical pigtails, with pyrotechnic explosions from above the stage and the smashing of an acoustic guitar at the end of the show in a semi-sexual teenage Townsend-esque display of chaos and anarchy. At the ripe age of eight, watching from the safety of the private balcony upstairs with my parents, this naturally had an impact and I later wrote a letter to Seamus to tell him so and that, like him, I intended to be a “music man”. My goal was set, albeit a simple one.

Seamus and his band soon moved to the big smoke of Melbourne, which started his own journey of hardship and discovery that would eventually lead us to this partnership. I moved with my parents a couple of years later to Northern NSW which placed me in the bustling metropolis of Murwillumbah (population 6000 at that time). I was also near the thriving scene of Byron Bay, the growing commercial jungle of the Gold Coast, and the ever-cultural Brisbane music scene. All three of these regions offered me exposure to a lot of great music and opportunities growing up, and today, after some global travel and considering my options, I am still proud to call the region home.

So a decade and a half later, Seamus and I finally rekindle our familial connection with a long thread of mutually supportive and ass-kicking emails. We’ve been encouraging each other to do better as musicians, exchanging notes on ways to market our original music, and also ways to turn our passions into higher levels of income without totally “selling out”. Seamus and I have had vastly different lives in many ways, and our music is very different to one another. We’ve both travelled, and had long term relationships come and go, and we’ve both had a multitude of seemingly perfect opportunities to “make it big” come and go. Where we both find ourselves today is in the very real world. Seamus has just had his second child with his life partner. I am married with my first child on the way. We both work creatively full time, which is very rewarding in many ways, but sometimes presents a bit of fear and frustration in the realm of bringing the bacon. And never more important has the bacon been.

So after spending some time researching and learning about new internet marketing tricks and techniques that Seamus had put me onto, and testing them in the field, it occurred to me that because of our vastly different journeys towards the same ultimate goal, Seamus and I together share a wealth of incredible knowledge of what works and what doesn’t. Beyond that, there is a wealth of knowledge on understanding the creative, technical and dare I say spiritual processes involved in writing, recording, packaging and promoting original songs. We both approach the task in different ways that yield unique and increasingly predictable results – I don’t mean the songs are predictable (though perhaps they are more so these days, to their credit), but the ways in which we embark on the creative journey are more pattern-based and thus create predictably AWESOME results. I put all of this and more down in an email to Seamus asking him to embark on a new and possibly time consuming journey to creating a forum in which to share this wealth of knowledge, and furthermore bring other creatives of all disciplines to the fold to add to the sharing. Stay tuned to hear more about this exciting project as it develops.

The 30 Day Challenge

So as part of creating this new venture, Seamus and I find ourselves needing to collect information and document our processes in order to compile them into some sort of linear flow that can be studied later. This is where we came up with the idea of the 30-day challenge. Like in any area you’re trying to make changes or grow in (fitness, weight-loss, work productivity, what have you) there’s nothing like a 30-day challenge to give you a little perspective. It’s an amount of time that’s challenging and can feel like its dragging on and on if you’re working on something that your mind wants to resist. It’s also an amount of time in which real change is achievable and you can soon reflect on how far you’ve come.

A 30-day day challenge needs to be part of a bigger plan though. It would be too easy to create a series of 30 day challenges that don’t add up to the ultimate goal you have (the big picture), so being really clear on what you really want is vital.

To give an example, cousin Seamus has already started documenting his 30-day challenge journey over at his blog Mewzo.com. His ONE YEAR goal is to become a professional musician within 12 months – a very noble goal indeed and (in my very experienced and professional opinion) absolutely achievable by anyone with a little bit of talent and lot of drive. Seamus defines this “professional” status as making a $50,000 wage each year from music or music-related activities (ie. Selling shirts at gigs, playing originals, playing covers). This is not his BIG PICTURE, this is his one year goal. He has not shared his big picture on his blog but I know he has one and, like mine, it is much grander and far-stretching than a basic wage from singing.

What is your 12 month goal?

The first challenge for you as the aspiring musician is to make a similar goal for the next 12 months, this is your first small picture to lead, eventually, to your big picture. Make it simple and really clear. Seamus’ is a great example because it has really well defined parameters – he’s even put a price tag on it so that he will know the exact moment he makes that last dollar and crosses the line. So what is your goal for the next twelve months? Here’s a few ideas of possible goals to get you started (these are not mine, just some random ideas that might spark some of your own):

To complete my first album and start selling it.

To make as much money from music in a year as I am from my day-job.

To have at least one original gig each month.

To start performing covers gigs each week to phase out my day-job.

My own personal goal for the next twelve months is going to be this:

Double my take-home pay from my business and sell 500 CDs.

If any of those goals resonate with you, write them down, or even better come up with one of your own. Make sure you only come up with one goal for the year though – you don’t want to confuse yourself with too many. No doubt your big picture (as discussed in the last lesson) is bigger than just an album or just an amount of income, so break it down into something actually achievable in the next year, and come up with a way to word your 12 month goal so that it encompasses everything you want to achieve in that time. Keep in mind that this one year goal is not your whole big picture – it is just a section of it and several years of these will create your big picture in its entirety. Seamus’s 12 month goal is well worded to encompass a range of activities in pursuit of his big picture. He just talks about wanting to make X dollars by X date from music related activities, so within the pursuit of that goal he is quite free to do loads of different things. This is where the 30-day challenges come into play (the really small pictures).

The next 30 days of striving.

Now that you have your goal for the next year you need to create a timeline of 12 monthly challenges, each that builds towards and supports the ultimate goal for the year. For the monthly challenges you want them to be as simple and specific as possible and have a few of them – about 5 is great, then you know you are working on multiple areas of your “big picture”.

Seamus’ goals for his first month relate to regular rehearsal, preparing a media kit, getting a booking agent, securing at least one paid gig and cutting alcohol out of his diet for the month to improve his health. These are all great and very practical goals, and all are also very achievable in the midst of working full time and raising two kids. It is really important to keep perspective on what you really can achieve in your current situation.

If Seamus were to go full steam ahead for his goal of becoming a professional musician and start by quitting his day-job and going on the dole, this would be a mistake and not conducive to the kind of success he wants. The entire point of the 30-day challenge is to incrementally step towards your goal, not jump in the deep end before you’ve learned to swim.

If your 12 month goal was to complete an album, then perhaps this month the goal would be to collect information on the expenses and write up a full budget. Perhaps you already know the costs or you have your own recording facilities, so you could spend this month writing a detailed schedule of what needs to be recorded, in what order, and when. A solid plan is the best tool a muso can possibly have, but only if it is then supported by some solid action.

You’ll notice the last of Seamus’ goals was about alcohol intake, and some of you might be wondering what this has to do with becoming a professional musician. What happened to sex, drugs and rock’n’roll? Well, it is a myth. There are always uber-famous musicians making fools of themselves with their partying and the truth is they can only sustain such a wild lifestyle because their “brand” (or their legend if you will) is bigger than they are. They are simply riding on the coattails of the stories that precede them and as we have seen time and time again, every party has to end at some point (and sometimes a premature death is the end). Seamus’ goal to not drink any booze for a month is a perfect example of working self-improvement into his plan.

It’s very important to strive to be the best human you can be, and we all know it. Being the best muso is one thing, being the best business person is another, but if the relationships in your life are not thriving then there will always be conflict, regret, and frustration holding you back. Looking at areas to improve your health, behaviour, relationships and lifestyle is always a great goal and will always help you immensely in your quest to make your “big picture” real.

When creating your 30 day challenges, try to have one personal development goal in there that you know will clear your mind or your body and assist you in knuckling down and doing the work to reach your goal.

This was my 12 month goal as a professional musician:

Double my take-home pay from my business and sell 500 CDs.

So, this is what my first 30 day challenge is going to look like, with a few detailed parameters thrown in:

1. Sell 10 CDs
• This can be any of the CDs that I have produced at J.Fox Soul (check out the “PRODUCTS” page of our online store to see what these are).
• Although I write CDs, this can also be MP3 sales as long as they are whole albums, not individually sold songs.
• I need to sell an average of 40 a month for 12 months to reach my goal of 500, but since I currently sell an average of one a month a realistic “ramp-up” is wise.
2. Plan and book shows for a Quick Brown Fox spring tour of SE Queensland.
• I have a show in September supporting Australian Idol winner Stan Walker, and this could be a big opportunity for exposure of my “brand”, so a string of public gigs after that show would be a really good idea to gain momentum and sell some CDs.
3. Finish updating covers repertoire to 160 songs.
• One of my major income streams is performing every week at weddings and corporate events, so investing time into keeping my repertoire fresh is a good way to support the current “growth phase” that this aspect of my business is in.
• Recently I compiled a folder of every cover song that I know and it added up to 160 different songs. There are a few gaps in the folder where I need to print lyrics and/or chords in order to be ready to perform any song at any gig.
4. Tidy, organise and systemise the office area at Foxden Studios.
• Currently my creative area (the control room) at my studio is where I do most of the work and it is really tidy and functional, however the area designated for running an organised and efficient business is a complete shambles. Tidying and systemising this part of the office will not only create a better work flow in my business, but it will be a symbolic cleansing and creating of space for growth and prosperity based on the basic principle that where there is no space nothing can be created.
5. Daily practise of meditation.
• Although it may sound a bit “hippy” to some of you, meditation is something I know my life is missing currently. I am always active in my mind and always seeking, creating, working, or if not doing those things, watching movies or having intense conversations. In my rest time I simply don’t take enough time each day to be still and let my thoughts float on by while I calmly and regularly breathe. As of today and for this entire month I am going to practise sitting still and quiet in mediation for at least ten minutes, with the hope that after 30 consecutive days a habit will have formed. This is my “personal development” challenge for the month.

Hopefully from the above you can see how my 5 goals for the month are conducive to and supportive of the ultimate 12 month goal and each is a realistic (albeit tiny) stepping stone towards the “big picture” (if you’ve forgotten what my big picture is, click here to read about it from the last lesson). By now each of you should have some idea of your goals for the year and month, so make sure you write them down and where possible share them with someone – a partner, spouse, band-mate, producer, anyone who can help hold you accountable to those goals. If you keep them secret it is too easy to also keep secret that you are failing or forgetting. You should all but tattoo these to your forehead so you don’t forget that this is what your month ahead is truly about.

If you’re a member of the site you can leave a comment below, feel free to share what your goals are with the group!

Until the next free lesson, good luck and feel free to email me if you need any more detailed advice about getting started.

Love and much respect

James Higgins

Director and founder of J.Fox Soul