Sorry, It's Not For You 🙃

One of the best lessons I’ve learned as an entrepreneur and artist is to have these four words on the tip of my brain when I begin sharing my work. 

“It’s not for you.”

This doesn’t have to be in anger or some weird passive aggressive way. Rather, by knowing that sometimes what I’m making is not going to resonate with the majority of people is 100% totally ok!  In fact it would be really weird if I rarely said it!

When I first started off seeking to make a difference with my tunes and ideas, I approached it like you would making a lasagne. “What are the ingredients and flavors I need to inject into this recipe that appeals to the most people?”

When we do this we create mediocre lasagne. There’s nothing really special or significant about it. It tastes typical and totally expected. No one calls their mom and will tell her about your amazingly average lasagne.

When we seek to make change through our art or ideas we MUST come at it from a strong voice, or uniqueness that will get noticed. Some will be repelled by what we have done, but it’s not for them. 

But then others will love where you are going, the new take you provided, the new sound, rhythm, video, voice, effect… etc.  Those are the people that we have gained trust with, and will follow you, buy your music, and support your vision. It’s for them!

Being an artist is fucking scary. And if you’re currently undergoing the pressure cooker of “make music that appeals to the masses”, and you don’t want to. …. well…. You have my permission to stop that.

The world doesn’t need you to be Adele, Lady Gaga, Sia, Björk, Dolly Parton, Mick Jagger, or Ed Sheeran. It has all those amazing artists already.

But there’s only one of you. Be unique baby!

I urge you to use these internal words often while you bravely put out art into the world. Like, if you know what you’ve made is good, and you’re proud of it, there will likely be many others that will love it also.

And for the rest… well, just quietly tell them, “it’s not for you.”

And then show it to 100 more people.

Zion

PS: I have a weekly get together with other home music makers over Zoom every week called On the Hook. Each week I give people a game that involves them making music using their production tools, but they have to do it in less than an hour. Then we get together at the end of it and listen and encourage each other on how to grow and get better. Join us this week?

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