TAG: entrepreneurship

Find Your Life Purpose in 4 Steps: Your Compass for Navigating Career Success

As someone who has experienced many career transitions, I know what it is like to feel at sea and unsettled by not knowing what direction to take your career. This feeling to “stuck” can happen at any stage of your career: in the early stages of your career when you are not sure which of the many options to follow. …

Managing The Unpredictable: 5 Steps to Help Manage Your Freelance Finances

If you are a freelance musician, you undoubtedly love the fact that you are making a living from your passion, together with freedom that comes along with being in charge of your own life. And yet, that life is fraught with uncertainty, particularly related to your finances: Can I really make money as a freelancer? How can I make money …

Live Your Values Part I: How Music Entrepreneurs Make Smart Career Choices

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“Values are like fingerprints. Nobody’s are the same but you leave ’em over everything that you do.” Elvis Presley Values are your qualities of intrinsic worth and the principles that run your life. Core values help to define who you are and what is truly important to you. In the words of one musician: “Values will help you to create …

The Mindset of Success: Four Pillars for Today’s Music Entrepreneurs

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Note: A longer version of this post appeared in I CARE IF YOU LISTEN. It is a fascinating, challenging time to be a musician. Traditional institutions struggle to remain relevant as new technologies and new ways of performing, disseminating music and interacting with audiences are changing our very world. A new model and more entrepreneurial model of success is emerging. What …

Entrepreneurial Projects: Creating and Pitching Successful Creative Projects

In my last post on the wonderful entrepreneurial projects of my students at Yale, I mentioned that we were very privileged to have a class with leading arts consultant and Yale Drama School Faculty Member Greg Kandel. The class took place at the beginning of our semester when the students were in the process of formulating their project plans and timelines. …

Classical Musicians in the 21st Century: How They are Faring and How They Can Make It

I recently wrote about how musicians today are living in a world of opportunity where the many changes that our culture has experienced in the last 50 years has given rise to new possibilities.

As we gear up for the new academic year, this is a great time to check in on how musicians are faring in this new paradigm and what they can do to create sustainable careers. The short answer is that jobs do exist for musicians, both in traditional and new arenas.  However, in order to create sustainable careers, today’s musicians are advised to take charge of their careers, master business and people skills and boldly adopt the entrepreneurial mindset in order to ride the wave of opportunity.

Let’s take a closer look.

Making Musical Dreams a Reality: A Tale of 3 Concerts and a Poet

This is a tale of one week in New York city involving 3 concerts, a 19th Century visionary poet and the importance of making dreams a reality. In today’s world where the paradigms of classical music are changing and we are experimenting with different models of success, these concerts make me feel a lot better about the state of our art.

Let’s start with the concerts.

My Brilliant Career: Messages to Inspire Today’s Musicians

The June 3, 2012 New York Times Sunday Review section featured a series of essays from 5 prominent people in different fields entitled “My Brilliant Career” reflecting on the “crooked paths to success”.

I was delighted to see that music figured prominently in this round-up since the writers included the brilliant composer and my colleague at the Yale School of Music, David Lang and pop record label president Jonathan Poneman, as well as politician Olympia Snow, the novelist Hilary Mantel, physicist and polymath Leonard Mlodinow.

The article, aimed at college graduates, shows us that the path to success is often a series of odd jobs and bizarre circumstances.  Moreover,  there are a number of themes that resonate powerfully for the creative people with whom I work.

Let’s take a cl0ser look.