Spoil yourself
What? Yes, you’ve heard it right. I’m asking you to spoil yourself! But it’s not as easy as you might think!
I grew up in a very rigid catholic rural environment and leaned, that I have to work and achieve before I’m allowed to rest. So I often don’t allow myself to get spoiled, because I haven’t worked hard enough, or because the results are not as good as I hoped for, or the house is not cleaned yet, or because the hedges in the garden have to be pruned first, or because of many other reasons.
I don’t ask you to ignore your duties and obligations. But once in a while you just need a break, what evern duties or obligations are still waiting.And this break can best be taken by spoiling yourself, by spoiling the inner child in yourself. Go and play ball with your children or get the great colored pencils you fancy. For me it works, when I go to the bar around the corner with a book to enjoy a cup of fresh mint tea. Baking cakes works too, or start knitting the scarf you always wanted to knit, or visit a church just to listen to the silence, or take a stroll along the riverside.
You know best how you really can spoil yourself. And it’s always different than how you are supposed to act. All feelings of duty or obligations are opposite of spoiling yourself. Spoiling is like playing, just for fun, and often it’s supposed to be silly. So please don’t care that others might think that you have become crazy, they all have their own silly ways of spoiling themselves, if they would allow it to themselves.
It’s important that you take all the time you need. And than it doesn’t need to be fancy or expensive. And it works in funny ways, because during these moments of spoiling ourselves we often get the greatest idea’s and lots of inspiration. Because it’s playful and not dominated by duties or obligations.
Summer has arrived in the Netherlands, and I’ll spoil myself this long weekend by enjoying it as it comes, and maybe take a terrace outside, with a book and a great cup of organic green tea. And next week I’ll work out the great ideas that will come to me this weekend.
Sabotage
The word ‘sabotage’ has a great history. It comes from the French word ‘sabot’, which means ‘wooden shoe’. During the industrial revolution workers in France put their wooden shoes in the machines, to bring them to a grinding hold, as protest against the work conditions. This act therefore was called sabotage.
Success often generates envy, and we use to think that this might be the biggest enemy when successful. Though I think that we have the biggest enemy within us! We are sabotaging our own success!
How? Everyone has his/her own favorite way to do it. Some don’t think that they are not worth the success they are experiencing, so they start to perform badly. This reinforces the assumption that the work is crap, so they are not worth the success. Others start to indulge in alcohol, sugar/fat food, drugs or anything that numbs your feelings, so you don’t have to deal with any insecurity.
My favorite way to sabotage my own success lies in romantic ideas. When I reach some success, I start to think that I’ve entered paradise and that everything will sort it out without me doing anything. I don’t have to do my best anymore, I don’t need any precautions anymore. That is when I start to feel a victim of my own success, which will decline automatically. The opposite of feeling a victim, is feeling to be in control, to gain back leadership about your life.
A better way to deal with success is lead-ing of your own life, including the success. Even paradise can only be enjoyed if you take leadership on yourself, if you take care of yourself, if you are present with heart, body and soul. That way you can prevent throwing a ‘sabot’ into the machinery of your own success.
Interview with Brian Hetherman
Brian Hetherman is Manager and President of Cerberus Management and Consulting. He is also the current Co-Chair of the IMMF (International Music Managers Forum, co-chairing with Volker May from Germany). You can find more info about him at http://www.cerberusartists.com
As manager you want your artists to become successful, and your own success is often measured on the fame of your artists. What does success mean to you? How do you measure the success of your artists?
That is absolutely true, but not always fair…. If hard work measured the success of an act and manager, there would be a lot more wealthy manager and artists.
Success to me truly means that I get to work everyday in a business I have grown up in, and one I still love (most days 
) I am successful because I wake up everyday and get to do what I love and its truly a bonus that I think for the most part I am respected by my peers in Canada and Internationally.
Success of my Artists is very similar, even if they aren’t playing stadiums if they can make a living at what they do and still enjoy life then they are successful. Lets be honest very few artists can maintain “Superstar” status for many years.
(How) Can you prepare your artists for being successful? What’s the most difficult for artists to deal with when becoming successful? How do you manage them in this?
I’m not sure you truly can prepare an act for success, however reminding them when they are starting out or up and coming that one day they may have to face an ego, is a good start
It also doesn’t hurt that when they are successful to remind them of the days when they were moving their own gear or updating their own website or selling their own merchandise, certainly can’t hurt.
I can’t recall which Manager said, “I tell all my acts its not a matter of if you fire me but when”…. I think that’s very true…. Eventually the relationship breaks down, be it 30 days or 30 years.
Later this month I want to offer artists on my blog online coaching and consulting in dealing with success (and failure). What aspects to you think need most attention?
I think the biggest point you can make is that Artists have to do everything themselves …. Waiting to find a manager who will do it, or a label to sign them or an agent to book them could take years.
And waste valuable years of development they could do on their own.
Artists are leaders
Since I started this blog, I’m convinced that artists can learn a lot from theories about (personal) leadership. Though I’ve might been a bit vague on why. And now I read the answer in an article of Bob Lefsetz:
“Artists lead, they don’t follow. They’re not beholden to their audience, IT’S THE OTHER WAY AROUND!”
And this is what my blog is about. I want to inspire and help artists to lead instead of to follow.
Link for the article of the quote:
http://encore.celebrityaccess.com/index.php?encoreId=355&articleId=42411
Success and fame from a managers view
In the last couple of weeks I’ve told more and more people in the music business about my blog. I’m getting great reactions, thanks to all of you! It encouraged me to start interviewing managers and artists for this blog.
At Tallinn Music Week in March this year I had a personal conversation with Ed Bicknell, manager of Dire Straits, Mark Knopfler, Bryan Ferry and many more. It was a great pleasure to listen to all the great stories he has to tell, about past and current likes and dislikes.
When asking him how managers prepare artists in how to deal with success, he answered: “Well, you don’t. You just hope that they are able to deal with it, that they have the right personality for it.” He added that age and maturity play a role in it as well, of course. Still, we constantly see some fall by the wayside.
For him as manager it is important that artists don’t take any drugs. Though controlling the use of alcohol or girls was far more difficult, he said. It seems to me that all these addictive habits make it more difficult to deal with live, success and fame. Talking about fame, Mark Knopfler once said: “I’d recommend success to anybody and fame to no-one.”
I couldn’t agree more on Ed’s policy on drugs and other addictive behavior. And I think that by now, there are enough coaching methods regarding personal leadership and creativity that makes it possible to accompany artists in how to deal with success (and failure!). Later this month I’ll introduce new consulting and coaching possibilities to you.
biography Ed Bicknell
foto: Ed Bicknell and Helen Sildna at Tallinn Music Week 2012 (by Rasmus Jurkatam)
Hiding or running away
What do you do if you have lots of fans, many people admire you, but you still feel insecure inside? Yes, you start hiding or running away from your fans, but most of all from yourself.
This happens to many famous people. I quoted Bob Dylan before: “Being noticed can be a burden. Jesus got himself crucified because he got himself noticed. So I disappear a lot.” That is hiding. There’s nothing wrong with it, it’s a necessity to all artists in order to stay in touch with their creativity – as long as they don’t try to hide from themselves.
Others run away for themselves. They use alcohol and drugs because they think that reality is too hard to live in, it has to be softened by the drugs. And if it is not drugs, it might be women or anything that distracts from reality. In the music business this is still seen as ‘cool’. The myth of having a great life with sex, drugs and rock’n roll is very much alive and kicking. Even the final way of running away from yourself – suicide - is not uncommon in the music business and seen as kinda cool.
Running away from yourself is not reserved to famous people. I had a serious car accident when I was a child. I couldn’t cope with it and was fleeing in books. What I read was far more interesting than real life, I thought. Even when with friends, I started to read and to dream away. And at night my parents turned off the electricity to prevent me reading until 3 am in the morning, while I had to get up for school at 6 am. Others might run away in music, in fashion, in religion, or in any hobby that becomes more serious than taking good care of yourself.
Is it necessary to run away? Is reality really too cruel to cope with? I’m now convinced that it’s not; not even for famous artists! Everyone can learn to feel secure and protected. Than you can lean how to cope with reality. And once you learned, you also realize that you owe it to yourself to take good care of yourself.
And if I’m not famous?
Last week I spoke to a manager about this blog. He sounded very interested. Though his problem was not that his artists are famous and don’t know how to deal with their success, but that they are NOT famous, and don’t know what to do. He thought that this blog would not be interesting for him.
Let start from the scratch. What is fame? When I was a little girl I thought, that if everyone in the small village I grew up in, all 500 inhabitants would know me and say ‘hi’ when I pass by, I would be famous. Later, when I went to school in the ‘big’ city Meppen (ca. 30.000 inhabitants!) I counted the people on the street that I ‘know’, that I’ve seen before. Assuming that they know me too, a good score made my day!
During my study in the metropolis Frankfurt, fame was for artists such as painters, writers, singers and for everyone high in any hierarchy, such as politicians, professors, bishops. They are all famous in their circles in Germany.
So you see, fame is very relative. Everyone is famous in his/her own circles. And how older you get, how bigger you want the circles to be. Even an artist who sells out arena shows in Germany might feel that he’s not famous, for he’s not known in other countries.
And yes, even if you think that you are not famous (yet), this blog is for you too. All the steps that help to deal with success and fame are about consciously living your life, realizing that you always have a choice, and start concentrating on your strength instead of your weaknesses. If you are not famous yet, it might even help you to discover what you want, and how to get there.
Dealing with criticisme
“When you get a good review, you feel good! When you don’t, you just have to realize that you can’t please everybody. We make music for the people who like it, not for the ones that don’t.” (Sass Jordan)
Sass Jordan twittered this some weeks ago. It’s so to the point! This quote made me realize, that everything is about making choices. Here it’s the choice of who you make your music for. And there are always people who don’t like it, especially if you dare to be outspoken. This will give you more extreme reactions than if you stay mainstream: people will really love you for what you do, and some might hate you for it. The difficulty is to become aware that not everyone will love you.
Criticism brings us back to the choices we make, consciously or not. A good way to deal with it is described by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way: receive it all the way through, note what bothers you about it, note what’s useful, nurture yourself by reading a positive review. And if you think that you deserve the critic, realize that it might be a stepping stone in your development. Start to defend your work to yourself, and create again. “Creativity is the only cure for criticism”. (Julia Cameron)
If you want to be loved by everyone, you have to stay mainstream. But in my eyes that’s entertainment and not art. And there are even people who don’t like mainstream, like me. I hope that you dare to make a choice for being outspoken, showing yourself and your message to others. And that you will keep creating, even if you know that not everyone will like you and your message. You create for the people who like it, not for the people who don’t.
Music is more than fun
At Tallinn Music Week yesterday I heard the speech of the Estonian president Toomas Hendrik Ilves. His speak was about freedom. Music is also about freedom, and about freedom of speech. In a free country you don’t have to take much risks to speak out freely. He mentioned PJ Harvey in a TV interview with the English prime minister Cameron, expressing freely her opinion in word and music about the policy of the English government. The risk she takes here, is that her fans don’t agree.
On the other side you have the action of Pussy Riot recently in Moscow. In Russia, church and state are separated. Still the orthodox church was openly advising on voting for Putin. Pussy Riot performed in an orthodox church to protest against this illegal advise of the church. They got arrested 2 month ago without any bail, and are charged for hooliganism, and can get 7 years of prison for that.
Ilves ended his speech with “Music is more than fun”.
Art and craft
On Wikipedia I found the most simple definition of an artist: a person who creates art. And when art originally just meant ‘skill’ or ‘craft’, it’s now used as an abbreviation for creative art or fine arts.
‘Creating’ is the key here. And a more contemporary definition adds the concept of ‘imagination’: art is “the use of skill and imagination in the creation of aesthetic objects, environments, or experiences that can be shared with others.” This also marks the difference between a craftsman and an artist, between entertainment and culture.
To be an artist, you have to learn a craft, start to create, and add your imagination. And the only way to get success and to hold it, is to keep in touch with your imagination, keep getting inspired. Many successful artists get blocked in their imagination and inspiration. Very wisely, Dutch TV-presenter Mies Bouwman gave this advise to tv/musical tycoon Joop van den Ende: “Nothing is more lethal than compliments and applause all the time.”
So how can you deal with success and keep your creativity, imagination and inspiration alive? I can accompany musicians on the journey to keep your creativity alive. For that, I combine my own experience in the live music business with my knowledge of psychology and the principles developed by Julia Cameron in her book “The Artists Way”. Everything starts with the will, to take life in your own hands – especially when you are successful.
