Maybe this should be the category, rather than “entrepreneurship.” I think both are sort of? The same thing. Both are about making things. Annnyway. In this post (UGH - stop starting things off like that) I want to talk about the difference between business advice and advice for being an artist.

Here’s some advice for making a business from none other than Alex Hormozi. If you want to make more money, you need to

  1. Get more customers
  2. Provide more value to your customers (or…)
  3. Reduce risk

Sourced from instaaaa

Okay! And here’s some advice from artists!

  1. Robert Green - Enjoy the tedium of your work (source)
  2. Chris Distefano - Focus on your output, not your outcomes (source)
  3. Maggie Rogers - (source)
    • your friends are the most important people to your career
    • commit to the risk of making art
    • nuture your ability to dream (“keep the dreams bigger than the fear”)
    • “The thing about being an artist is that it’s not a profession; it’s a vocation. It’s not something you do or sign up for. It’s who you are. It’s somethign taht calls to you from the deepest depth of your being. I’d tell her to trust that knowing.”
    • “Art is not an industry or a game; it is a practice… it’s your artistic faith that will save you… it’s kind of punk to take the long road… no two artistic careers will ever be the same… What matters is how you make people feel.”
  4. “How I practice at what I do” by Tyler Cowen. Also from Tyler (source): “‘What is it you do … that is comparable to a pianist practicing scales?’ If you don’t know the answer to that one, maybe you are doing something wrong or not doing enough.”
  5. Not an artist, but good advice on achieving your goals from Alan Watts reiterated through Graham Weaver, and not through meeee. To achieve your goals, you need:
    • clarity - Take time to get specific, visualize, write down what you’re really going for
    • action - go towards the thing. Everyday. Prioritize imperfect action over perfect action.
    • faith - Fear and faith are both predictions of the future. No one knows anything about the future, so you might as well choose the fun one.
  6. Nothings ever hard forever. You either quit, it gets easier, or you get harder. But nothing is hard forever. There is no shortcut! This is for now, not forever. (source)

some notes from meee

Okay, reviewing all of these up above, it’s clear to me that you’ve got to just… spend a lot of time making. Which? In order to do that, you need to show up.

  1. Do everything you can to make showing up fun and rewarding and easy.

  2. Decide how the freak you’re not going to lose hope. This is faith. This is minimizing fear. This is about not giving up. This is a state of mind. Idk how to achieve it. This is picking a goal: be a paid musician. Have someone hire you to play music.

Once you show up, (i.e. you get on the bench, you sit at the piano, and you mess around) then you can start to think of like… Okay how might I improve my piano practice. I proved to myself that I can practice for an hour a day, every day. That’s great! Now what…

Once you’re showing up, and you’re believing in your art, then you can start to focus on putting it out into the world and making it better. How can I improve my practice time?

How can I make my art better?

How can I show my art to more people?