Everything Must Be Paid for Twice

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I stumbled onto this blog post and it has my head spinning! Here’s an excerpt:

“If you look around your home, you might notice many possessions for which you’ve paid the first price but not the second. Unused memberships, unread books, unplayed games, unknitted yarns.”

The author points out that there’s a first price (which is usually money) to acquire things like books or a budgeting app but that a second price must be paid in order to actually use the thing, like taking the time to read the book or set up the app.

He argues that the second price is frequently higher than the first price and speaks to the negative effects of accumulating things where we have yet to pay the second price:

But no matter how many cool things you acquire, you don’t gain any more time or energy with which to pay their second prices—to use the gym membership, to read the unabridged classics, to make the ukulele sound good — and so their rewards remain unredeemed.

I believe this is one reason our modern lifestyles can feel a little self-defeating sometimes. In our search for fulfillment, we keep paying first prices, creating a correspondingly enormous debt of unpaid second prices. Yet the rewards of any purchase – the reason we buy it at all — stay locked up until both prices are paid.

How does this specifically relate to my own journey as an entrepreneurial musician with a portfolio career?

I am a firm believer in online courses. The best of them offer instant, in-depth access to the world’s foremost experts on just about anything. We have never lived in a better time to learn, really learn, from the best in the world.

But there is a problem with online courses.

There’s always another one!

I have purchased a number of online courses that I haven’t even begun. And purchasing yet another course, no matter how great the sale is or how relevant the material is to my journey, isn’t helping me dig out of that hole.

So in 2022 I made a rule that I am no longer purchasing any online courses until I actually complete some of them. It’s not like I’m sitting on a dozen of them but the number also isn’t two! And with each passing purchase I felt a little more overwhelmed by all of these uncompleted (and sometimes unstarted - which I just made a word) courses. So I’ve hit timeout.

I also bought a subscription to QuickBooks last year to get organized with my finances so that tax time wasn’t so chaotic.

But it turns out that second price of that purchase was a lot bigger than I thought it would be. I not only had to set it up but I then had to keep inputting data over and over and over again.

You might be sitting there wondering “well how the hell did you think it was going to work?” and you would be right to ask that. I just underestimated how much work it would be to stay on top of the data input.

I don’t regret the decision and don’t consider the subscription wasted money. I needed to experience it before I realized that two days of chaos at tax time was a lower second price for me than updating the app every week (meaning 50+ times a year.)

I would recommend the four minutes it will take to read the full blog post. It made me more thoughtful about acquiring things and encouraged me to use the things I already have - both good things!

I’ll leave you with two questions to ask yourself:

What things have you acquired where you have yet to pay the second price? And for each, should you pay that second price now, get rid of it, or stay the course?

Godin: The specific yes and the meandering no

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Sometimes Seth Godin nails something on the head so concisely that I think about it for the rest of the day. Today is one of those days.

“While some people reject a new idea simply because it doesn’t work for them, often the people who are saying no are afraid. They’re afraid of what change may bring, and they’re not sure they trust the innovation and the system enough to go forward. But we’ve been conditioned to avoid saying, ‘I’m afraid,’ so if we’re uninformed and afraid, we make up objections instead. And even add angry bravado to our objections, simply as a way of hiding what’s really going on.”

Read the whole thing here: The specific yes and the meandering no

The Perfect Thing

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I stumbled onto this article from a marketer I wasn’t familiar with, Michel Fortin. I found this post because he quoted Dori Clark, whose work I love.

An excerpt from the article:

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The perfect thing doesn’t exist so stop hiding behind the excuse of waiting for it. Do your best. Not your best overall. Your best right now. Then share it with the world. Then do it again just a little better.

That’s all any of the people we look up to in the business have ever done.

Article: An Impossible Choice: Music Majors, COVID-19, and an Uncertain Future

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We are living through remarkable times. I was explaining to my six-year-old the other day that literally no one alive has ever lived through something like this. That applies to people and to institutions.

Higher ed has been under some immense pressure of late for a number of reasons. And this pandemic has really accelerated a lot of those pressures, which is putting it lightly.

This article by Zach Finkelstein and Dana Lynne Varga dives into the choices that current and former college music majors are currently faced with. There are no good choices.

“With fewer or no opportunities to perform live at school, can music degrees live up to their mandate to prepare students for a career? In other words, what is the value of a socially distanced degree in music performance? And if the value is significantly reduced, and given the extraordinary financial stress on young music students and their families, what is the best course of action?”

Particularly interesting is the end of the article where the authors map out how a student who is either deferring or taking a year off could continue their education on their own for a fraction of the cost of attending college this upcoming year.

It will be fascinating to see how all of this plays out, both this year and moving forward.

Did I mention we are living through remarkable times?

Click here to read the article.

If you feel a little squeamish about your marketing...

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...you should probably trust your gut. This means you're doing it wrong.

This short article is a good reminder that there's two kinds of marketing:

  1. The pushy car salesperson who is trying to get you to drive off of the lot that day in one of their cars no matter what they have to say to you

  2. The complete opposite of that

Always trust your gut when it comes to marketing. The bad kind of marketing is like pornography. It can be a little hard define. But you always know it when you see it.

Article: Godin on difficult decisions

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Sometimes I deal with difficult decisions that I wish I didn't have to make in the worst way possible, I just put off making them. Hiding can be the easiest option for an entrepreneur (or a human) at times.

Seth Godin, in an as always brief blog post, breaks down how we can proceed when being forced to make a difficult decision.

(Note: The hardest part for me is ignoring sunk costs. That's really hard sometimes!)

Click the link in the tweet below.

Article: Godin on the correlation between price and satisfaction

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Seth Godin's daily blog post was particularly good today. He talks about the relationship (or lack thereof) between price and satisfaction and includes this nugget about being sure you charge enough:

"Price is unrelated (in creating satisfaction), except for one thing: Charge enough that you can afford to actually keep your promise. The thrill of a low price disappears quickly, but the pain of a broken promise lasts a very long time."

I highly recommend taking 60 seconds to read the whole post.

Godin: Price and satisfaction

You're behind. So what?

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"Quitting merely because you’re behind is a trap, a form of hiding that feels safe, but isn’t. The math is simple: whatever you switch to because you quit is another place you’re going to be behind as well."

—Seth Godin

Yet another truth bomb from Seth Godin.

You are always behind so using that as the primary reason to bail on something is just an excuse. Try to get to the heart of why you don't want to continue so you can decide if that is in fact the best thing for you moving forward.

Don't fall for the trap.

Godin: How far behind?

Article: Sometimes You Win the Race Because Everyone Else Stops Running

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"A huge, incredibly un-sexy ingredient in my success is that I’ve simply kept going. For almost 10 years, I’ve written blog posts, replied to comments, and promoted things I created. I’ve done this almost every blessed week day. For 10 years."

—Sarah Von Bargen from the Yes and Yes Blog

I stumbled upon this great post via future TEM guest Dale Trumbore's twitter feed. (Her interview is recorded and will be released soon. Don't miss it because it is awesome!)

Such a simple concept and yet so important to hear. The un-sexy key is you just have to keep running. I highly recommend checking out this article.

(Click the link in Dale's tweet below)

Perspective is everything

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As Seth Godin points out in this spot on blog post, perspective is absolutely everything.

Four different people will experience the exact same thing in completely different ways based on their professions and world views.

Recognizing this fact is very powerful because it enables us to recognize our own bias and intentionally attempt to view something from a different perspective when that is helpful (which it almost always is.)

When trying to provide goods or services to someone (in or out of the music business), it is imperative that we forget everything we know about the product, service or situation and think like the customer.

Of course we think what we are providing is important, but have we made that case to our customers?

Practicing the ability to change one's perspective is one of the common traits that the insanely successful people I've interviewed for TEM all share. Might be good for the rest of us to that skill as well.

Processing negative reviews

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No matter how convenient it would be for our egos, nothing you could ever produce for the world is going to be for everyone. Literally nothing.

Most Americans have never stepped foot in a Starbucks. Hard to believe if there are five within 10 miles of your residence, but it's true.

Most of us know that trying to please everyone is a fool's errand, yet we all bristle at negative reviews or feedback. 

But that's a waste of time.

Follow the link for a great (and as always, short) post by Seth Godin on processing negative reviews in a constructive manner.

Godin: Processing Negative Reviews