As you learned with the Cycle of Success and Failure, the battle is won or lost during the Development Cycle.

Results, good or bad, are just a by product of the actions you take and the way that you execute them.

For every action you take in your business, their is a resulting consequence, typically measurable to some extent, and the goal in business is to select the right actions, and do those successfully.

In this context success means that the actions and time spent working toward a result, was both valuable and profitable.

As you learned in rule 2, goal achievement requires more than wishful thinking. To take your career and music business to the next level, commitment is a requirement.

If you were starving and the only way to eat was to catch a fish, then you wouldn’t just drop a string in the water with a hook on it-and hope or pray to maybe catch something would you?

Of course not!

You would test every kind of line, and every kind of bait, in every different part of the river UNTIL you got the result and fed your belly.

Ya know what i loved about being in the Infantry...

Well besides getting to blow shit up... (Which we did entirely all too little of) In between scrubbing floors and walking all over the earth with a large rucksack strapped to my shoulders.

Every thing the infantry did, we did the very best way we could.

This is something that will forever stick with me that i'm very grateful for.

It was all about the way we went about doing things, and much less about doing the thing itself.

We didn’t have much, and often times our most essential equipment was pretty worn out. Well, almost all the times.

But we figured out how to get the most out of everything we had to work with.

I since carried this characteristic that I learned as a soldier into my civilian career path as an artist and entrepreneur. Which has mostly been a large gamut of DIY experiments at varying cost and catastrophe. A big old bunch of disasters with a few nice successes thrown in from time to time.

As a scrappy, green-eared kid ready for whatever Bootcamp could throw at me, I first arrived at Fort Benning Georgia and remember asking my Drill Sgt. if we'd be bulking up or using weights during our training phases...

Unfortunately this was were i learned to pay close attention to the meanings of certain answers i'd receive. Eventually i'd learn that infantry bootcamp is not exactly precision training for size and strength. It was more like the perfect detox program for the typical 20-40 lb overweight male who might have tried other diets in the past-but couldn't get em to stick.

In any case, Drill Sgt Therell can't be faulted for innaccuracy, i did indeed learn how to "shove 10 lbs of shit into a 5 lb sack."

But you learn through trial and error and after almost a dozen years!

Where i’ve gotten, from where I’ve come from has largely depended on my ability to take the lessons I’ve learned in one area of life, or from one experience, and apply it to another, sort of testing theories and hypothesis and drawing correlations and patterns based on reality and through situational experiences as opposed to a more traditional education.

I think my slightly different perspective has been my biggest asset in terms of survival, training, and education throughout my life and career.

In Baghdad I learned to focus on one thing at a time to a very intense degree.

That was also a survival mechanism, and one huge positive I was able to learn from being at war for a year in one of the most heavily attacked camps in one of the most heavily attacked U.S. occupied war zones in the world at that time.

As a tiny little guard unit from Michigan amongst the biggest most established active duty units, we sure proved a lot of people wrong.

1/125 Hooligans Kicked Ass!

This carried over into my study of music and production when I came home, and ultimately into my process of developing all of my core skills online and then finally into coaching and consulting for clients.

I think the largest and most pressing observation for those like you, artists and creators who are doing what they know they were born to do.

The biggest disconnect seems to be in both the integration of creativity and the technical know-how for utilizing the modern toolset like a pro.

In business and in civilian life we can all sometimes lose that hunger and our focus along with our attention to detail... But unless we regain the proper mindset, figure out what we want, and then resolve to go and LEARN how to do it, we can’t be successful.

When it comes to modern music marketing, and especially when we start to talk about stuff like traffic generation, website optimization for search engines, paid advertising, and other non-exciting subjects that are just apart of the new game... the Mastery Mindset can easily get replaced with a... “Ya well i’ve already got a website, if people don’t find me and realize how great my stuff is, then that’s their loss...” Kind of Attitude.

Or, "Jamie, i’m just not technically savvy, I get confused and frustrated with all the SEO, keyword research, content marketing stuff, and so I get overwhelmed and thus don’t do much more than publish a blog every now and again that may eventually get a couple hundred to a couple thousand visitors a month."

Sort of like a Treadmill, where we’re moving constantly but ultimately we end up in or around the same spot.

But you cannot allow yourself to fall victim to an attitude of indifference, give in to overwhelm, or let yourself get stuck “hamster wheeling” your responsibilities, IF you want to truly commit to growing your brand and doing what you’re here to do, at the level you are capable of doing it!

The Mastery Mindset

In my experience working with many artists at many levels from many different backgrounds I believe the issue begins and stems from a casual Mindset towards dealing with all this digital data, and more importantly not having clear next steps to confidently take towards targeted and realistic goals...

It’s not conducive to the mastery mindset, which is the key to greater creativity, connection, communication skills, and optimal performance. It goes against the kind of evolutionary wiring we have developed for hundreds of thousands of years. Think about it... Almost all of us apply the Mastery Mindset to at least ONE area of our life. Think about how much more mentally and emotionally liberating it is to think about an area of expertise you've already mastered as opposed to the snarling millipede of unprocessed jumbled up data you just don't have a frame of reference for how to deal with without some degree of brain fatigue or stomach tension.

It’s not a very sexy diagnoses because there is no magic plugin, pill or software that can replace developing the mastery mindset... Yet learning the fundamentals of the modern toolset, building a rock solid foundation for being an artist and content creator in the modern world is the area i've spent a lot of time and energy breaking down and helping you utilize so that you can step your game up, and elevate your career to the next level of artistry.

The systems, processes, training, concepts and principles I have created for you here originated out of necessity for myself and my clients to simplify, clarify, and intensify focus on the highest leverage activities that produce the most value.