69. What 69 Podcast Episodes Taught Me About Music, Business, and Letting Go

If you're really trying to take this to the next level, it doesn't make any sense to not have the things that you control, that you can control, handled.

You learn a lot on your way to 70 episodes.

Creating these shows and talking to these artists has really been a great time.

I hoped that this show was an opportunity to kind of just meet artists where they're at, let people know that they're not alone.

Maybe give you guys a couple tools for some tough days, some days when you're discouraged by hearing about the stuff that other people go through.

You, too, might feel like you're not, you know, just on an island by yourself.

So if you logged on hoping to figure out how to make millions of dollars and be the next international superstar, I regret to inform you that that's not what this show has been about.

Really has been about connecting with the artists that are doing the work.

They're out there every day like you and I just trying to figure this thing out.

flawed people trying to figure it out and make it to the end of the day with some cool songs.

What I did for you is I tried to compile 10 points that I learned throughout all the episodes.

It was hard to just pick 10 and to keep everything in like an organized list, but I did my best.

So I'm going to go through these for you and I hope you like it. Feel free to like, comment,

subscribe, and just give me any feedback. I'd love to hear what you thought about the show,

good or bad. I thought that playing music for fun and the music business would have a lot

more of a fluid relationship. But the more I talk to folks, I realize that they sit on two very

opposite sides of the spectrum. Can you be in the music business and have fun playing music? Sure.

But people that just enjoy making music with their friends and somehow want to, you know,

try to squeeze a little bit of revenue out of that experience is more frustrating, disappointing

than it is fulfilling. On one hand, you have just playing music, right? You want to play music,

record it, put it out, share it with no expectations. Great. Enjoy it. I think everybody

should do that at least once or twice. On the other hand, you have music business, and that's

trying to take your art and package in a way that's accessible for the public for the purpose of making

a living. That means that you are officially an entrepreneur in the small business world, which

means that you are beholden to those same four pillars of business, right? You have to make

something that people want. You have to tell people about the thing that you made. You have to sell

the thing and then you have to deliver the thing. Now, you don't have to be an A plus at all four

of those pillars, but you can't be less than a B in any. Let me talk about making the thing.

I always felt that we had almost like a diluted or unrealistic view of what great music is,

right? We're a little bit, we're all a little bit ecocentric. We're artists. We have our own

personal tastes. We view the best thing that we can make as a great thing. And oftentimes it is,

Right. But there's still an objective level of quality. I would call it an industry standard.

And that's real. You know, they warn us about comparison being the thief of joy.

Comparison's not all bad. You know, we compare our art to the stuff that's actually objectively good.

And we're honest with ourself and we note a disparity. It should help us. It should motivate us.

You know, it should create a standard. Be like, look, if I want to wrangle, you know, 50 to 100 thousand dollars a year making music.

This is the standard.

These are the people making that kind of money.

And this is the level of music they're putting out.

I think if we're being honest ourselves, we know what good music is.

And I think sometimes we'll look at our catalog and say, all right, I recorded eight songs.

The best of these eight songs is going to be the hit.

And then we'll put it out and be like, oh, I don't know why people aren't responding.

This is the hit from my album.

Those hit songs, to put it in perspective, are so good.

Like, for instance, let's take I Want to Rock With You by Michael Jackson, right?

The chorus, super catchy.

The melody, super catchy.

But even, like, the horn hit in the song is a hit.

Even the fill in the beginning of I Want to Rock With You,

that fill in the beginning is one of the best fills in music,

one of the most recognizable.

And that's just the drum beat in the beginning.

And here's the thing.

I'm not saying that to discourage anybody, right?

You should want to make incredible music.

You know, like you're not going to make the next Bye Bye Bye or Espresso because it's already been done.

But you are going to make a hit that is exclusively you.

I was watching a seminar, probably 2011, and he was a DJ talking about like other EDM music.

And he was like, is Tiesto the best DJ?

Or is he the best DJ because he's Tiesto?

And I'd never really understood the question until like way down the line.

And I was like, hmm, you're not going to have the best album because you're sonically the best, right?

You're not going to out-rap Eminem, who I personally think is the best at rapping.

You're not going to out-sing Brittany Carlisle or Whitney Houston because you have the best voice.

But you're going to have something that's the best because it's you, your version of your thing.

And that's what kind of gave me a little bit of solace.

So I think the magic there is doing your thing at just a really high level and setting an unrealistic standard for yourself.

And while everybody is saying, hey, my stuff's good enough.

Yeah, this is the hottest of the 10 songs I've recorded.

You'll have that higher standard.

And I think that's what's going to propel you into the stratosphere.

Just my opinion.

Kind of piggybacking off of what I said before.

You always hear this term, believe in yourself.

So I started asking guests from episode to episode, what does it mean to believe in yourself?

I thought it was the cheesiest line.

It was like, believe in yourself is almost like an excuse for delusion.

And then as I started to unpack it, I thought, hmm, believing in yourself is actually putting

faith in your guts and your instincts.

Certainty is a luxury, right?

And there's even less certainty when it comes to trying to mix art and commerce, right?

I'm making a thing.

A million people are going to like it.

10 people are going to like it.

A million people are going to hate it.

Any one of those three things could happen.

Certainty is a luxury that we do not have as artists.

But I think believing in yourself is being able to start without having all the answers

and then trusting that you can course correct.

You can shift.

You trust your intellect.

You trust your gut.

You trust your taste.

Our gift as artists isn't just the ability to make stuff.

It's our taste.

You know, our taste is what makes us an artist.

Anybody can drag a pencil across a piece of paper.

Almost the same amount of people can draw an eyeball.

Our taste and our vision is what makes us able to be like,

okay, well, if I put a dark shadow there, it'll give it depth.

And if I give it, you know, this shading here, it'll look realistic.

And I'll put this white highlight in it to make the eyeball actually look wet.

You know, that's taste.

You know, that's what we're doing with these songs and music.

While most people can hit play and they can make noise with an instrument, we have taste.

And I think that taste that we have should fuel our gut and our instinct.

And we should rest and take some degree of comfort in knowing that we have better taste than most people that aren't artists, that aren't artists.

And trust that and just continue to make cool stuff.

I mean, obviously, as artists, we deal with some degree of self-doubt, self-esteem, however you want to package that insecurity cocktail that we all, you know, sit from time to time.

I got to thinking about this line from Peter Sage that said, you never rise above your opinion of yourself.

He talks about your opinion like it's a thermostat, right?

And it regulates the highest version that you believe you can achieve.

sounds a little cheesy, right? But if I'm a salesman and I believe that I'm a hundred thousand

dollar a year guy and I'm making $70,000 a year, well, I'm going to grind and I'm going to feel

entitled and I'm going to work and fight and claw to get up to that a hundred grand. Now, once I

believe that I've reached my apex, that's kind of take your foot off the gash. You're like, oh, okay,

I've achieved what I'm supposed to be doing. The people that are getting ahead, like you see these,

like these stories, these like early Kanye videos, when he just believed he was going to be somebody

when everybody was down to him, that's where I think the delusion or just very almost like

obnoxious belief in yourself is helpful. That's when I think that that increase in standards or

that expecting more of yourself, like those promises that you say to yourself in the dark,

or not even the promises, the things that you hold yourself accountable for,

slowly increasing the standard, I think that that kind of lifts your performance across the board.

You know, people that set high expectations for themselves, they just believe that their song should perform and then they go and make a song that they believe performs.

So almost like the delusional belief fuels real action and they land way above somebody who just accepts the status quo, if that makes sense.

I did a little bit of word association with my guests in the last couple of episodes and it was fun to see everybody's different answers.

I agreed with probably 60 to 70 percent and the people that I actually didn't agree with we

actually had really uh fun conversations the way I said is like so it's always like what's more

important x or y you know so for one I said what's different what's more important uh balance or

obsession meaning you know managing the rest of your life and working at like a healthy pace

or trying to achieve greatness through obsession thing throwing all your thing almost to an unhealthy

degree into the art, like a, like almost like a Prince or like a Michael Jackson or Michael

Jordan, even not very nice guys, but just obsessed with their craft and ended up becoming great

because of it. And, uh, I went back and forth about it and I'm like, a lot of people did say

balance. I think on most occasions balance is it. I believe that there's two exceptions where,

where it's helpful to be obsessed. One, when you're actually really young, right? You don't

really have as many things, you know, counting, many people counting on you as much responsibilities.

I think that you have the ability to go, you're young, you have the energy, your health. You can

go all in on these endeavors for like blocks of time, or you can just throw yourself all the way

into it to really see if you have what it takes. I think that's helpful in the long term to really

see what it looks like when you go all in on something. And then when you're on the other end

of success and you're trying to break through, I think losing yourself in the work for seasons

is helpful. But overall in the aggregate, I think it's better to grow your music in a healthy way

where you're balanced. You still have healthy relationships, healthy diet, mentally stable

while still being able to create music and art. I think the best antidote for this is patience.

If anybody saw Russ on, he talked about this on a couple of different podcasts,

But he was like, to be consistent, you actually have to be patient.

Like his work ethic was crazy.

I did something like a song a week for two years or something like that.

And then he was talking about, well, if you want to break through, if you want to use that model for every song, have, you know, 30 to 50 TikToks ready to go.

But there's a way to do that in a more strict and regimented way, which still kind of caters to balance.

It's just more efficient and effective.

So I think patience is kind of the happy medium between balance and obsession.

where you can be obsessed in small parts, be more strategic, be more purposeful, deliberate.

I think that's the answer in a roundabout sort of way. What's more important, culture or strategy?

A lot of people did say culture. I believe culture as well. Strategy is basically just

what you plan to do. But when your plan goes, you know, tits up, that's when culture takes over.

What do we do when this happens? Culture connects with your values, right? I think if you're really

going to be serious about this thing. You have to have your, your three or four non-negotiables,

right? If these things are true, then it's a yes. If these things are true, it's a no.

And that's what culture is like culture takes over when the plan isn't as finite,

you know? So I'm definitely going culture over strategy, talent or work ethic. Most everybody

said work ethic. I'm leaning towards work ethic with the caveat that you're still talented such

that you're better than say 90% of the people, 90% of the population of what you're trying to do,

right? Like if, if I walk into the supermarket and I'm more athletic than 90% of the people just

in the supermarket, then my work ethic can take me the other 10. You know, if I want to be a

basketball player, football player, whatever. If I write songs better than 90% of the people just

in the supermarket that have different degrees of interest in music, and I'm in that top 10%,

My work ethic can take me the other 10, but I still think you have to have a degree of talent.

Consistency or luck.

No matter how consistent you are, I still think you need to have a degree of luck or timing to break through.

I think by being consistent increases your chances of getting lucky.

Like I think you have to be out and active and basically like activity begets more activity.

So I think you have to be out and doing things and then you have a better chance of getting lucky.

But I think I still have to say consistency.

Hustle or calculation.

And that's in reference to blind hustle and activity or like calculation and planning.

On this one, I actually went, a lot of people just said hustle.

You just have to be grinding.

I think that nothing happens without some form of activity, but also the best education

happens when you're just out there doing stuff, right?

Like deliberation is only going to take you so far.

I think you learn best just in the field.

They say a potential is a blank check, right?

The piece of paper with the dollar amounts on it is useless until you actually cash it, right?

Like, I think you have to, no matter how much potential planning, no matter how good the plan is,

you still have to execute, you still have to be out there.

So I'm going with a hustle, activity, action, whatever, over calculation and planning.

It makes no sense to not be all in.

And that is actually, I took from an interview that I saw with Zach Braff.

He was actually talking about this in terms of acting.

And he said, it's amazing how many people will go to auditions and they just don't have their stuff together.

Right.

Obviously you can't control if you get the part, but you can put yourself in the best position to get it.

Right.

He's like, people will come in.

They don't have an idea.

Haven't done the research on the character.

Didn't memorize the lines.

And it's like, don't you know how many people are gunning for this spot here?

Like, don't you know how hard people are working to try to get in here?

How many people are doing all the things?

There's all the people that are doing things right.

And then even that's still a big pool of people that have to get lucky to get picked for that spot.

If you're wirklich trying to take this to the next level,

it doesn't make any sense to not have the things that you control, that you can control, handled.

It kindof a telltale sign too.

Like, if you're unwilling to kind of set up the infrastructure and the boring stuff to get your music in there,

if you're really trying take this to the next level,

it doesn't make any sense to not have the things that you control, thatyou can control, handled.

The thing here is you're trying to be exceptional, right?

And to be exceptional, you have to be the exception, right?

So if you're doing things that a lot of other people in the community are willing to do,

it's still comfortable, right?

At some point in that journey, you have to almost like look like a crazy person.

Like you have to start inspiring some doubt.

People are going to start looking at you like, man, that's a lot.

You know, you're kind of doing too much.

That's going to be the telltale sign you're starting to like break away from the pack

and grow. This next gem I actually got from one of my more recent interviews with Danny Bysel,

one of my favorite lines, you hold tighter with a looser grip, which is basically a really cool way

of just saying, let it go. You know, how many things have we just overvalued? And we almost

like push them away by default by just being too tense and trying to force things to happen that

we weren't aligned with. Me personally, I mean, I've ruined relationships that way. I've squandered

opportunities that way, just trying to be too tense and force things to happen in the way that

I saw fit. It's almost like relinquishing some of that control to God or the universe, however you

believe. And by doing that, noticing that, oh, things actually, you actually kind of draw those,

that positivity in towards you by kind of letting some of that control go. It was a cool, he probably

explained it 10 times better than I did, but that was probably one of my favorite sayings I heard in

the last month. You hold tighter with a looser grip. So this is actually another hard part of

the show because I interviewed so many good artists. And so I want to give you guys some

recommendations. If you listen this far, everybody was awesome that I interviewed. Like I didn't

interview anybody whose music I didn't personally like. So I want to recommend some artists that

actually have full albums that came out recently that I'm actually still currently listening to

regularly. So if you didn't hear your name on this list, doesn't mean I don't like your stuff.

These are albums I actually listened to in the last 24, 48 hours.

And obviously, if you just scroll down the list of artists,

most everybody has incredible music.

My personal favorite, Morning Wars.

The album is called Prospect Gallery.

That's the brainchild of Mark Ramos from New York.

This is like an all-indie rock.

Think Cage the Elephant with soulful vocals.

Like if John Legend was the lead singer of the Black Keys.

I mean, dingy guitars, a little bit muddy, still super soulful.

Morning Wars, Prospect Gallery.

You're going to have a hard time convincing me that wasn't the best album in 2025.

Also, different vein, but just as qualitative.

Lena Cooper had an album called A Girl Who Never Made It on the Internet.

It's literally the sound of 2025.

If somebody came from another country and like, what was 2025 like in the United States?

Here, take this album.

It's like angsty.

It's angsty, it's loud, it's unapologetic, really creative.

The songwriting is mint.

Lena's an absolute rock star.

I'm glad I got to interview her now before she's touring worldwide.

She's going to be a huge success.

Keep an eye out for her.

That's Lena Cooper.

Another guy I met, Quinn McGraw.

His EP, Swan Song, under the name Pariah.

Beautiful emo metal album, high quality.

I believe Swan Song just did a million streams.

Shout out to Quinn.

Hell of a job on that project.

Loved that album.

Screamo Metal with really interesting arrangements.

Great musicianship.

Still artful.

Nice aesthetic.

Great visuals, too.

Quinn's another one.

Shout out to all my folks in Canada, too.

I had quite a few guests from Canada on this show, too, which I never expected.

Last but certainly not least, I actually still listen to Imani's album.

Imani had an album called The 11th Hour.

Neo-soul album in the same vein as Jill Scott, Alicia Keys.

but infuses jazz, rock, a little bit of hip-hop,

some gospel in there too as well.

Really emotional project too.

It is not for the faint of heart.

She really taps into some deep feelings for me

as a lot of the album was a tribute to her late grandmother.

So check that one out as well.

Imani, The 11th Hour.

The next topic might be a little bit of a sore subject.

I feel like there's been this kind of rumbling

that it's easy to get bitter about content creation.

I mean, we all started out making music

And none of us that I know of started making music with the intention we were all going to have to make a whole bunch of videos and TikToks and posts and likes.

And we'd be validated by like stranger responses to stuff we posted.

The whole thing still seems a little weird to me.

Maybe because I'm old.

But it felt weird.

And it's really easy to push back against it, complain about it, whatever.

And the more I started talking to people, the people that were doing really well weren't really too bent about it.

I think there's a narrative that's unhealthy, or I should say unhelpful, that if you want to get ahead, you have to do a whole bunch of posts and likes and be this huge content creator.

I believe you have to have a strategy, and content has to be a part of that strategy, but no more than it always has.

Like, we've always had to promote our shows and promote our album in one way or another.

It's just now we're the ones on our computers and our phones doing it in between takes.

And yes, does the music suffer because of that?

Sure.

You have to balance the two, and it's difficult, and I get it.

but there wasn't really a common connection between the people that had a bunch of great music

and they also had this like huge social media presence it was like some of the best albums

people really weren't online that much and there was videos of them doing shows and the shows were

full there wasn't really a ton of content out there and then there's people that had a bunch

of really interesting content and there wasn't really a ton of music you know and it didn't

really one didn't dictate to success in like a one-to-one comparison so the idea that you have

to be obsessed with content it has to dictate your every move i don't really think that's the case

and i think that there is a fun way to do it the same way you approach your music with creativity

you can approach your content with creativity as well but all i'm saying is hold a little less

tighter than the narrative that you just have to be this disgruntled person posting indiscriminately

around the clock because obviously just blind effort of just posting around the clock that's

not productive either you know everybody talks about consistency and post your music just put it

out or or be a little bit more deliberate with your strategy you know like the people you see

people do it with these uh with like album rollouts or the way you see um people like run a campaign

and they'll kind of fall back a little bit obviously you want to have connections with your fans but

just indiscriminate posting i don't really think that's moving the needle just a little food

for thought. I'm not the best at my social media, so take this with a grain of salt. If you're doing

things that you enjoy, keep doing it. But if you're frustrated to the point where it's affecting your

music, maybe recalibrate or just reconsider. Just put it out there. And it's difficult for most of

us too, so you're not alone if you feel like that part of the business sucks. I've been trying to

frame this next question in a way that doesn't feel like an indictment of someone's character.

And I've still been struggling with ways to word it, but if we're not getting what we want and

we're not getting the results we want and we're not doing the things we should, it's only because

of one of three things. And that's ignorance, laziness, or cowardice. Ignorance, we just don't

know what to do. Laziness, we just don't feel like doing it. Cowardice, we're just scared to do it.

Right? And when you put it that way, it sounds awful. I have been guilty of all three. And the

thing is, it's changed in every season of my life. There was a day when I just, I knew what I had to

do. I just didn't feel like doing it. And there were days when I knew what I had to do. And I was

just scared to do it a little bit insecure because I was growing a little bit. And I was like, I,

I'm not really, I don't want to look stupid and be bad at this thing. I know how to do it,

but I'm not good at it yet. We've all dealt with that. Like even now I'm in this weird stage where

I spend 40 to 50% of my time in rooms where half the people are smarter than me, which should be

embarrassing, but also it's a sign that I'm growing. You know, there used to be rooms where

I was the smartest person in the room.

I wasn't getting anywhere, you know, and I was just stagnating.

So it's not a sign of failure that you're scared to do something or that you don't know

what to do.

It's a sign that you're growing.

You're supposed to fail.

I mean, isn't that essentially what science is?

You try something, it doesn't work.

You collect the data, then you try again.

And I try to find like anecdotal things to kind of reframe it.

So I just feel better about it.

Like, for instance, if I don't know what to do, right, and I'm confused, I kind of stole

Charlie Munger, it's easier to destroy something to create it. So you reverse engineer the problem,

right? Like if I wanted to have a successful album release, right? Well, if I already had a

successful album release and I wanted to destroy it, what would I do? Well, I probably wouldn't

spend a bunch of time reaching out to people I know. You know, I wouldn't put much thought into

which venue I'd have it at. I wouldn't plan my marketing promotion with any kind of like ramp up

or anything, I'd probably just throw anything at it and, you know, hope it would work. And then you

just do the inverse of that and be like, okay, so if I want to do it well, those things that would

tank it double down on the opposite. And I kind of use that sometimes if I'm, if I'm stuck,

maybe that'll help. As far as like the laziness thing, you got to find something where the pain

of not having it is greater than your comfort. And that's hard to do. Cause it's, I mean,

we're in like a comfort maxing society. Our food comes to the door, our groceries can

up on our doorstep. We literally meet people from the comfort of our living room. We don't have to

go out and meet anybody anymore. Our world is so comfortable. And so to sacrifice that comfort to

go after something, you have to want it really bad. The pain of not getting what you want has to be

worse than the comfort of what you currently have. And that's tough. And then as far as cowardice,

I mean, here's the thing. If it's worth doing, you're probably supposed to be a little scared.

And if you're moving with any kind of consistent progress, you're probably just always going to be scared.

This is never going to go away.

I would just say do it scared.

You dissolve that fear, I think, with the experience.

You know, it's like they say the world doesn't get harder.

You just get tougher.

You know, and I think a lot of it is that people always have their opinions.

You're always going to look silly when you first start something out.

There's always going to be a risk.

and probably the bigger and greater the thing is you're doing is probably going to be comparative

to the level of risk. So do it scared, I guess. I hope that helps. In closing, if I could put my

goal in creating this show underneath one umbrella, I would say it was the umbrella of comfort. I

wanted the show to be comforting, whether it was, you know, a drive to work, a commute, whether it

was like in between takes while you're in the studio, you check out my podcast, whether you

was supporting one of the artists that were on there.

I'm just taking some comfort in being like,

hey, we're all in this cool thing together,

trying to make music that we believe in.

Not many people have heard it,

but we have this like three to four minutes,

this little piece that means the world to us.

And we don't know how people are going to react to it,

but we're all making these little pieces together

and we're sharing them.

And I hope this was like a cool kind of community feel

for everybody that was listening.

And if you have been listening,

thank you from the bottom of my heart.

Over the next couple of months,

I am going to be taking a little break from the show.

I kind of want to revamp some things and maybe put together more of a strategy.

Because up until now, I've really just been just recording episodes just for the love of it.

But see if I can't, you know, put myself in a position to help artists better and bring a little bit more value to the guests.

But more importantly, I kind of just need a couple months to just hear the music again.

I recorded music for most of my 20s and 30s.

And so it took a while for me to actually just be able to sit down and just listen to music objectively without being in like a producer or like writer headspace.

So same with the pod.

I want to take some time to just listen to music, hear what's out there, kind of get a little bit more in tune with the local community is doing.

And I think all that will help me make a better show and a more qualitative experience for you folks that have been listening.

So thank you.

Please, I'm not going anywhere.

Please connect with me on socials.

If you have music you want to share with me or something you're really proud of, please send it my way.

I want to hear what you guys are working on.

And if you've liked what you've listened to so far, please tell somebody who loves music.

Take care of yourself.