Time For You to Learn the Martial Art of the Musical Entrepreneur

Today, we are in the information age. If your goal is to build a career from your passion for music, you must embrace the truth…

You NEED to become an entrepreneur!

The fact that the accessibility to make music and to reach an audience has greatly increased, have both pros and cons.

With streaming services such as Spotify as the new normal for music consumption and the relatively inexpensive cost to produce and release music, we are in a whole new playing field.

Some of the pros are: 

1. It’s a lot easier to get into making music and create a good product from home. 
2. You can reach a far wider audience than ever before, thanks to the wonders of the internet and social media.

Some of the cons, however: 

1. There’s is a lot more competition since it’s easier to make music and release it.
2. You have to harness the skillset to market and build an engaging audience.

All these changes in the music industry paint a completely new picture of how you must operate within it. With these new tools, it has now become the responsibility of the artist to also become the marketer, promoter, and creator of their career.

A Career Creator

Being an artist myself I know it can be difficult or straight-up weird to combine business with art. Marketing yourself and your brainchild creations… out there, with all those eyeballs? What if it distorts my artistic integrity? Terrifying.

“Creating music requires your *heart*, sustaining your career requires your *mind*, and each are constantly threatened by the the other.” -Ellery Bonham

Since I’m French and entrepreneur is a French word, let’s look at the primordial definition, which translates:

“An entrepreneur is a person at the origin of the creation of an economic activity. Someone who possesses the necessary competence and motivation to be a leader in their own pursuits. Contrary to a businessman who only seeks to maximize profits, an entrepreneur seeks to immortalize and suspend their craft into permanence”

Don’t you love how poetic the French language can be? Hon hon… fromage!

Entrepreneurs consequently embody many desirable habits and qualities. If you look at becoming an entrepreneur through the lens of sharpening your self-disciplinary habits and creative skills, it will become way more appealing to you.

If you’re serious about transcending the start of hobbyist you must build your own career. To build it around your passion, you will have to synergize both the art and business of your craft.

The Way Of The Warrior

The entrepreneurial quest is a journey in itself, but as you progress within it you’ll undoubtedly find the need to adopt certain foundational principles to be successful.

I’d like to share with you my journey on how I developed my guiding principles, self-discipline and embraced the mindset of a warrior. These have undoubtedly set a solid foundation for my whole life and my for my entrepreneurial endeavors.

Courtesy 
Integrity 
Perseverance 
Self-Control
Indomitable Spirit

I vividly remember rehearsing these principles at the beginning of every Taekwondo class. There’s something to be said for constantly re-affirming what you would like to achieve and embody. Before we continue, let’s back up the story a little bit.

I was a massively overweight pre-teen (too many unchecked Oreo binges). I must have clocked in at about 220–230 pounds. It really affected my self-confidence, self-worth and overall health.

However, one day I decided to join my friends who were already enrolled in Taekwondo classes. It wasn’t a choice fulled strictly for losing weight. I mean.. I was young and it seemed really fun. Who doesn’t like hitting stuff?

Little did I know that I was being immersed in a community of supportive people of all ages and levels in the same quest of self-mastery. It was almost subconscious at the time but that was the north star; the main energetic focus of the classes.

Learning to respect and be honest with yourself and others, pushing yourself past your limits, focusing your mind, conflict resolution, and developing your will are all skills I learned throughout my journey as a beginner to my 1st Dan (black belt).

Isn’t it funny how all those skills and characteristics could easily describe a musical entrepreneur?

Now, I’m not saying you have to start a discipline of martial arts, but I do think you should adopt or develop some sort of guiding principles to help build habits and a work ethic.

Martial Music

The movement of strumming a guitar, playing the piano or grooving the drums all have a close parallel with martial arts training. They all embody the concept of focused attention.

It’s a calculated sequence of movements while being in a state of flow.

As I progressed through the various phases of my Muay Thai, Taekwondo and Jiu-Jitsu training, I began to realize that the mind-body focus I had been developing from my classes was directly helping me with my musical side.

When your mind and body are synchronized, you function at your highest level. This state is achieved through constant practice of mental fortitude and relentless training of your muscle memory.

Take learning a new guitar chord for example. First, you have to know where to place your fingers. Then, how to move your fingers all at the same time to land on the chord and strum it with your other hand. Then practice, practice, practice until you don’t need to think about it.

The same goes for learning a simple drum beat. First, you have to know what every limb is doing at what time throughout the groove. Then you have to learn to move all your limbs independently and land at the right time to play the beat correctly.

This can progress to higher levels which will start to match more closely the qualities of a warrior. Such as the endurance, cardio, and precision of extreme metal drumming, memorizing 13 minutes progressive musical pieces or a Chris Cornell-esc vocal performance.

The flow state is the marriage of yielding the disciplined mental focus with the muscle memory of your body to become creatively free.

The question is: Can you incorporate the warrior spirit, mental discipline, and muscle memory into your journey as a creative entrepreneur?

Think Like An Artist, Act Like A Boss

To attain the career of your dreams in your creative field, you MUST build it. To build it, you need a balance of creativity and a professional work ethic.

If you want to graduate from a hobbyist to a creative entrepreneur, you need to put yourself in the position of the boss with the insight of your creative mind. You need to be a self-disciplined leader of your own endeavors.

Think of it as developing a martial art training regimen with the purpose of building and maintaining a lifestyle-career that is creatively freeing:

Courtesy for the people you engage and network with.

Integrity in the quality of your work and how you serve others.

Perseverance through the struggles and obstacles in reaching your goals.

Self Control in your habits and in your reaction to problems.

Indomitable Spirit in the face of fear and challenges.

Once you’ve become skilled at your holistic craft, you can build a business around it. Financial support will come of passionate fans, passionate fans will arise out of an audience you build, and an audience will form as you engage, share and network with others consistently.

Suchi Rudra says “Becoming successful as a creative entrepreneur is not just about having a passion for your work and strong skills in creative industries. You also need the skills and mindset of an entrepreneur. Can you get things done without someone reminding you of your tasks? Can you be your own boss and devise a business plan? Do you possess strong self-motivation to navigate the creative economy? And do you have an ability to organize your schedule and juggle different client needs and deadlines?”

It all comes down to YOU and your martial art of being a creative entrepreneur.

Where are you on his journey? 

Interested in learning more? Click here to download your Mindset Map and discover your next steps in your musical journey.

My name is Alexandre Joyal. I help music creators achieve success with their music by teaching them how to produce themselves and adopt a creative mindset.