Invisible vulnerabilities

It was a tiny, virtually invisible thermal exhaust port on the Death Star, which eventually brought about its demise.

My friend had always wanted to own a bonsai tree. A few weeks ago, he finally bought one for his office.

He was excited to tell everyone about his new tree. He followed the instructions and started doing everything that was required to take care of the tree. But, a few days after buying the plant, suddenly it began to lose its leaves. Over the next couple of days, no matter what he did, it continued losing leaves and started to look like it was going to die.

I stopped by his office recently, and he showed me the sad little tree and told me the history. Now, I don't know anything about taking care of plants, especially not a bonsai tree, but this didn't seem normal.

Then I noticed something.

A few years back, the person who worked in his office before him had tinting installed on the windows. The tint was filtering out light and starving the tree.

He's removed the tree, and it's now starting to grow its leaves back.

It is interesting to ponder... something so subtle, virtually invisible in that tree's everyday environment was preventing the tree from growing. And no matter what care was taken to help the tree, as long as it was in that environment, it was never going to grow or flourish; in fact, it was dying.

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Ok, that's all for today. Good luck out there!

#CreateSomethingGreat

Photo by Todd Trapani from Pexels

Create | Post | Forget

Putting your heart and soul into something you've created, posting, and earning no immediate reaction or engagement, can be discouraging.

I have worked in the music industry for most of my life, for both fun and work. And these days, the bulk of my work in music is in the world of music licensing.

When you compose and produce music for licensing, there are many paths you can follow, and one of those is to submit music to music licensing companies. These companies review your submissions and either accept or reject your music.

If you are accepted, the licensing companies work with you to rename tracks, direct you on the different versions they need, catalog, tag, add metadata, and other technical formalities before placing the music in their catalog. After this process is complete, you wait. With no guarantee. You are hoping that someone will eventually use your music.

But the time between your music being accepted by a licensing company and getting a placement/receiving a royalty can take years. Because, even if someone selects your music relatively soon after you submit it, they still need to finish whatever production uses your music. Then, they need to fill out cue sheets and complete all the necessary paperwork to notify your PRO (the agency that ensures songwriters and publishers are paid for the use of their music by collecting royalties on behalf of the rights owner), and then the production using your song still needs to air the performance, and then it could take over a year from that air date to see a royalty payment (which may be the first time you discover that someone used your song). 

This process and timeline can be maddening and demoralizing for music producers.

There is a motto many of us who work in music licensing live by that goes: write, mix, submit, forget.

The idea is to create your composition, get it mixed, submit it to the licensing companies, and completely forget about it, i.e., move on to the next song.

But I believe this motto transcends music licensing.

Growing anything takes time and patience. But the addiction to the dopamine release from likes and engagements with your content makes us all extremely impatient. And it's demoralizing when none of your followers engage.

That's why I believe it's helpful to adopt this philosophy of create, post, forget.

Reciprocate any engagement with your content, but post your content and move on. Once you stop caring about likes, you'll lower your stress and limit burnout. 

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Ok, that's all for today. Good luck out there!

#CreateSomethingGreat

Photo by Cristian Dina from Pexels

Get gas on the way home

Nothing is a waste of time if you use the experience wisely. - Auguste Rodin

Greatness comes from facing challenges

In 1923, when asked by a New York Times reporter, "why do you want to climb Mount Everest," George Leigh Mallory famously said, "because it is there."

You are correct and you are wrong

Is it possible to be right and wrong at the same time? In a word, yes.

When someone reveals their character, believe them

The great Maya Angelou famously said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time."

Unintentional feeding causing unintentional growth?

What you feed, grows. Even when it's unintentional.