This is the season when music students are hearing about the results of their auditions: from graduate schools, fellowships and summer programs, as well as professional orchestra and other ensemble auditions. With so much competition for a limited number of spots, rejection is a common phenomenon. In two of my recent coaching groups at the Yale School of Music, we went …
Live Your Values Part I: How Music Entrepreneurs Make Smart Career Choices
“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 …
SMART Goals for SMART Music Entrepreneurs: How to Make Your Dreams Come True
Musicians abound with passion and creative ideas. For many, however, this abundance of ideas can be paralyzing since they find it hard to figure out which ones to harness, let alone how to make them happen. Here are two ways to help take those great ideas and make them happen: 1. Write down your goals 2. Set a SMART Goal …
The Magic of Group Coaching: Yale Music Entrepreneurs Discover The Power of Group Wisdom and Support
This semester, I launched a new program at Yale: group career coaching. What is Group Coaching? Group coaching is a magical process whereby a small set of peers who share a common goal meet under the guidance of a facilitator/coach to learn new information and share their experience on topics of interest to the group as a way of advancing …
Creating Success in a DIY World: 4 YSM Music Entrepreneurs Share Their Insights
One of the highlights of my semester is when I invite recent alumni from the Yale School of Music to speak to our students about how they created their career success. My students are consistently impressed and amazed that musicians who are a mere 5-8 years ahead of them are already successfully wending their way through the world of music. …
Career Planning for Music Entrepreneurs: Tapping Into Vision and Going for Plan A
The past two weeks, I have had a great time working with the future stars of concert music and talking a lot about how to create a successful career as a musician. First, I spent two days with the Fellows at the Norfolk Chamber Music Festival, located in the picture-perfect hills of Northwest Connecticut on a beautiful estate where the …
Personal Branding for Musicians: How To Discover and Communicate What Makes You Unique
A personal brand is a powerful marketing tool for creative artists that communicates your authentic unique gift to the people you want to attract. It is a message to your ideal audience members • that expresses what makes you unique and memorable • and distinguishes you from your competition • so that your target audience connects with you emotionally and wants …
Informational Interviews for Musicians: How to Get the Inside Scoop and Expand Your Network in 7 Steps
The informational interview is an excellent career building strategy for musicians since you can find out from an insider what it takes to build your career path, discover new and different career options and learn about the realities of working in the world of the arts. In addition to being a source of first-hand information that is not otherwise available, …
5 Yale Music Entrepreneures Share Their Insights on Success: Follow Your Passions and Trust Your Gift
I love organizing the career panel for my class at the Yale School of Music so that my students can hear from successful musicians just what it takes to create success in this environment. Last week, I hosted yet another amazing group of 5 Yale alumni as part of my class, representing a wide range of interests and backgrounds:Melvin Chen who …
How Happiness Breeds Success: 5 Tips to Enhance Your Career Success
For those who know me, it should come as no surprise that positivity is one of signature strengths (under the StrengthsFinder 2.0 strengths assessment), something that I am truly grateful for. So when I learned that there was a branch of study called positive psychology, I was most intrigued to find out more.
Positive psychology, a field that emerged in the 1980’s, is the scientific study of what makes people thrive and excel. Simply put, it is the science of what makes us happy.
Happiness is often defined as “subjective well-being”, involving pleasure, engagement and finding meaning in life. This can include:
• Realizing that you have the capacity to change
• Experiencing fulfillment
• Joy in striving towards your potential
Happiness comes along with a positive mindset that looks at the world through the lens of learning and opportunity. For professional musicians, cultivating a positive mindset is an essential element of music entrepreneurship. Let’s take a closer look at how the science of happiness can help musicians to create greater career success.