Perspective is everything
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.