theShade: Those who don’t do, teach…

I heard an interesting comment the other day that I want to unpack.

“Why should I trust the words and advice of a person who hasn’t made it?”

The music industry is filled with thousands upon thousands of artists that want to tell you how to succeed, offering up all sorts of advice on what the trick is to get “there” and “make it”…

Just the other day, I was told from self proclaimed “professional musician” who has been in the industry all of five minutes, “If we at Atomic don’t focus on local music, we will lose the support of local musicians and your business will come crashing to the ground”…

My first thought was along the lines of “Haven’t you heard dude!?! We are a NATIONAL brand, focusing on NATIONAL rural and regional artists! Not a local music facebook page sharing memes and gigs for likes and clicks!” (sorry fam, not discounting all you legends running these types of pages, you do good things for local music, read on, you will get the point, put down your ranting fingers, farrrrkkkk).

I didn’t ask for the advice… I felt I didn’t need the advice……. I also didn’t take the time to value the advice.

I didn’t value it because for a split second, the egotistical brain I have that has been taught year after year to rank people by their success as is taught in society, didn’t see value in taking on the opinion of a person who has next to no experience in the music industry. I literally transformed into the idiots I can’t f&%king stand!

This person has insight that I do not have. He is connected to a different area of the local scene that he is involved in and by offering up the advice he gave me, I could have adjusted our course to cater for that group in a way that also caters for the primary audience of Atomic!

We spoke about passion last week and here is the thing… People with passion do research. You have heard of the old saying “Those who don’t do, teach”. Teachers learn everything there is to know about a subject so they can best deliver it to their students. They didn’t discover Pythagoras’s findings BUT they sure as shit can teach the hell out of it. In time, the student becomes the teacher and all of a sudden, we have an age-old method being used in the modern-day, time and time again in the same way it was taught!

Experience ISN’T everything!

Next time someone offers you advice, take it on board and see if it can be applied. When you grab a collective of people’s thoughts and learnings and apply them to one source, you may very well lay the new path that leads to music industry success.

Shade Out