TAG: positive attitude

Rejection and the Growth Mindset: The Power to Change

This is the season where graduating students are hearing from doctorate programs, festivals, grants, fellowships, professional auditions and other opportunities for which they have applied. Inevitably, there will be rejections along with a few acceptance letters. And with those rejections, it’s not hard to fall into the trap that you are somehow not good enough and that you will never …

Networking for Arts Leaders: Top 10 Tips for Creating a Life-Long Supportive Network

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In my work with arts leaders, I emphasize the importance of networking and therefore consider networking to be an essential leadership skill. My definition of networking is very simple: Connect + Share + Remain Relevant This boils down to the art of creating successful relationships in a mutually-supportive community that can help you both personally and professionally, as well as …

How To Adopt the Attitude of Success Part II: Raise Your Energy in 7 Steps

My last blog post on how to adopt the attitude of success introduced the 6 different levels of energy– the different attitudes that you might have about your career– showing the thought that is associated with each level: Stress-Inducing Levels: Level 1: Worried Level 2: Frustrated Motivating Levels: Level 3: Managing Level 4: Service Level 5: Opportunity Level 6: Flow Here …

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The Elements of Career Success: 6 Steps towards Fulfillment

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What are the common elements in creating a successful and fulfilling career? This question is at the heart of my work with professional musicians and arts leaders, as well as creative business professionals—in short, anyone who is committed to incorporating her passions into her work. Here are the 6 steps to creating a career that is not only fulfilling but …

Managing Multiple Passions: Taking Charge of Your Life and Living at Choice

One of the hallmarks of creative success is having a positive can-do mindset and feeling great about the choices that you make because this makes you feel in charge of your life.  This can be quite a challenge for those with multiple passions. I recently explored the challenges of having multiple passions and how to push through the fears that often paralyze those who love a lot of different things and are afraid to make the “wrong” decision. 

There is another big challenge in managing multiple passions: deciding which one to focus on.  When you love a lot of different things, it is tempting to want to do everything.  However, that is simply not realistic. In my experience, people who do “everything” wind up defaulting on their commitments, jeopardizing their relationships, feeling overwhelmed and often harming their health.  And yet, if we love doing a lot of different things, we might land up feeling resentful if we have to put off doing something we love.

Managing multiple passions is a function of choosing the activities that advance your goals and make you feel great about your decisions.  So here are a few strategies that can help you to focus your efforts and manage those passions!

Financial Freedom for Music Entrepreneurs Part III: How To Manage Your Debt and Spending

If you have taken the last two financial freedom quizzes, you will have a much better sense of your attitude towards

1. your financial literacy and the fear of not knowing how to manage your finances; and

2. your fears around not having enough options to make money as a musician.

You should also have a much better sense of what to do in order to become more comfortable managing your finances, as well as exploring new and different options for making money as a musician.

Now let’s tackle debt and spending.

Top 10 Tips for Music Entrepreneurs: How to Create Sustainable Career Success

With the year coming to a close, it is time for top 10 lists.  My contribution to the field is a top 10 list for Music Entrepreneurs on how to create career success.  This list reflects my belief that successful music entrepreneurs align who they are with what they do  .

The short answer is be authentic, be unique, and master the skills that will enable you to create big dreams and make them happen. Not surprisingly, this list reflects the topics that I will be covering in my class next semester at YSM on Creating Sustainable Careers in the Arts.

Here are my top 10 tips for musicians who are committed to creating and sustaining authentic success:

How to Develop the Mindset of a Music Entrepreneur: 5 Tips on Positivity

I was quite taken with a recent blog post in Music Career Juice on how musicians should not look to businesses as a model for how to operate but instead to aspire to be expressive energy grids – generating, transforming and distributing energy continually.  Since I teach musicians how to create career success, this got me thinking more about the kind of energy that one brings to a situation in order to be successful.

We have all heard about “negative” and “positive” energy.  Think of what it is like to be surrounded by a group of people who complain and bemoan the state of the world, which we hear a lot of these days in the world of the arts:  orchestras like Philadelphia declaring bankruptcy, fewer spots available in orchestras, the weak economy.  I could go on but I don’t want to add to the doom and gloom!  That’s what negative energy can do-bring you down.  And because energy is transferred, if enough people in the room are spinning out negativity, it tends to drag down others.
Let’s look at another scenario:

The Power of Flow

I recently presented a workshop on Peak Positive Performance Strategies at a new festival sponsored by the Manhattan School of Music for Amateur Chamber Musicians.  This was a wonderful opportunity for me to share some techniques on overcoming performance anxiety based on my own personal experience as an amateur pianist and chamber musician, as well as my professional experience coaching …