When I dove into the music industry eight years ago I had no idea what I was doing. My first experience was being in a pop-rock band. We had good music, we played well together, but looking back at it, we had no idea what we were doing. All we knew was that we made good music that people seemed to enjoy.
As we struggled to make an album... (who knew you had to have an engineer, a mixer, and then mastering and then someone had to make the CD's), it seemed like an endless cycle of starting and failing and starting and failing. It took a lot of time to sort out who was actually telling us good information verses who was telling us bad information. By the time we had the album, had played a couple shows, got some attention, we were all pretty much exhausted and broke. The band dissolved fairly quickly, but I remember reflecting on the whole situation and whirlwind of a couple years and feeling like it was over before we even began.
Starting things is hard.
I have started a lot of things and failed at a lot of things.
I started a record label in college that failed miserably, I started a clothing line that failed, I started to sell coupons/ads for a year and it failed. I tried to start a beat selling company and it failed. I started a whole company that had an e-book on how to run a business that failed... the irony... I have two books I have started that are just sitting and essentially are failing....
I have always been someone who is kind of starting things....
I've started multiple companies, they are all in baby stages but they are all registered and real. I keep them a secret for the most part because they are not really ready yet for the world but I've learned how to start things. I started a mentoring program that is going well. I started this blog that has reached literally thousands of people.. thank you so much for reading and sharing. I help start careers for artists, and I am helping my wife start her own clothing company that's launching in the next couple months. I have started a lot of things.
I am twenty nine. It has taken eight years to build anything that's solid. A lot of people don't understand that. But it all began by starting, by taking the first step out and not caring what other people think. I have had to pour myself into this world of music, learning, failing, starting, shifting, getting burned, praying for work, losing work, gaining work, to put myself out there day after day - to view the word "no" as one step closer to "yes". I have built up a skin that's darn near bulletproof at this point and it all came from starting and taking one step after another. If I failed, I would regroup and keep going.
I think my whole point with sharing these things is that starting will probably lead to failing.
You can't start something without shaking hands with potential failure.
It goes hand in hand. This failure can be super intimidating for most people, but after you do it a few times it no longer has power over you. It loses it's intensity and begins to just be an after thought. What I have learned is that starting things and trying things out is way more fulfilling and life giving then any of the failures or "what if's". When one of the things you start actually does catch on, then your confidence can skyrocket. I have experienced it first hand. I am only where I am today because I embraced failure a long time ago. It's always lurking around the corner of next month.
Eventually the failures don't even feel like failures as you know a success is up ahead.
We have great ideas and passions and talents.
Each one of us has moments where we catch fire and feel like we've finally found our purpose only to realize the next steps are rather ambiguous.
Having an idea and turning it into something is one of the hardest things to do. It's the main reason why many people never even try the things they desire in life because starting seems impossible.
What I have learned in starting things is that you have to break down your idea into the most baby size steps as possible. Reading this blog is easy. It may inspire you to revisit an idea or a dream or business idea. Don't let it stop there. Pick a task, just one thing and start it. Maybe it's landing on a name for the business. Maybe it's buying the domain name. Maybe if you want to write a book, it's just free writing for ten minutes.
If those things sound too hard then break it down and just spend one minute on it. Anyone can do that. After one minute if you hate it, take a break. If you want to continue then keep going.
Start small, super small.
You could even start by taking one minute to think about what your first step should be and then call it a day. Anything you do will start to lay down the foundation.
After the foundation is down then you can keep building, eventually you have a house.
Most people have the drive and talent to do what they want. The problem is normally caring about what others will think. That thought alone makes many people not start. The amount of times I have personally had to examine why I am fearful of something due to what others may think of me is in the thousands. It doesn't exactly go away, but you learn that it's no longer a deciding factor in determining how you will live your life and whether or not you will pursue your dreams. It loses it's power the more you start things.
If you start something knowing that failure will probably happen at some point in the journey then it no longer becomes something to fear. It's predictable, expectable.
You can even prepare for it mentally and emotionally. If you start something and know that you may get negative feedback from critics it loses it's intensity. Everyone gets critiqued and cut down sometime. This is normal. Don't let something normal stop you from achieving something incredible in your life.
I challenge you to go start something today. Let me know what it is.
Peace