adventurewithdanny

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly

My friend Bereket commented that sentiment on a video I posted the other day.

How many times have I stopped myself from doing something because I am afraid of doing it wrong?

It's worth practicing an instrument even if it's scattered.

It's worth writing a song even if the song is a dud.

It's worth creating a website even if the website doesn't lead people to where you want them to go.

It's worth speaking to a stranger even if you fumble over your words and look foolish.

It's worth writing a joke even if it's not funny.

I could go on forever. I have never made a “customer avatar” for my business because I have been afraid of doing it poorly.

Tonight, I am watching a video on it and filling out the questions. I'm not allowing myself to write "I don't know".

Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly.

Feeling stuck is a choice that we exercise when we don't use the tools we know we have.

I am full of ideas. A few minutes with pen and paper reveals this.

A few minutes of walking outside jump starts my creativity and curosity.

A phone call with a friend where we can share ourselves opens me up to new patterns of thinking.

5 minutes of budgeting alleviates fears around money

A trip to the grocery story eliminates questions about what I am going to eat.

How are you creating a “stuck" world for yourself?

The other day I was coaching a client and we spent 2 minutes in silence just letting our thoughts swim in and out of our heads.

He told me he noticed that his thoughts on the past were depressing and his thoughts about the future were anxious.

He also said he realized maybe the depressing thoughts on the past didn't need to be shackles he carried.

We then spent some time consciously thinking of positive things about the past, and optimistic thoughts about the future. We spent time brainstorming ideas for how the future could be bright, happy, exciting, or inspiring.

What I want to share today is that we have patterns of thought that we live in every day. Our mind automatically will think certain things and we can get stuck in our ways. You have the capacity to change your thoughts! A few minutes with pen and paper writing down some ideas can plant the seeds to changing your thinking.

If you find your thought patterns aren't leading you to the life you want, spend some time writing out new thought patterns you would like to have.

I find myself sometimes thinking I'll never get original music gigs that pay any amount of money, or that I will never find success in original music.

I can take time to consciously think and believe the opposite of that.

“My original music is good and helpful. As I continue to write and share, my music ends up in front of the right people so that it can grow and spread.”
“I have the work ethic to spend time each day practicing strategies to get my music in front of new people.”
“Festival bookers are excited when I share my product with them - my live shows are transformative and fun and festival bookers want bands that can transform audiences”

^These thoughts might not be the first thought I have, but I can write them down and practice saying them to myself to help me transform into someone who thinks this way and acts in accord with these thoughts!

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I just had an amazing conversation with a fellow musician/bandleader about how to lead bands.

The big insight I walked away with is to not be a mind reader.

I've spent a lot of energy worried about what my band is thinking:

Are they enjoying the gig? Are they upset not enough people showed up? Am I asking too much of them? Do they like the music?

These questions can carry a lot of fear, stress, and anxiety with them, especially when they remain unanswered!

When I just sit with these questions and worry about the thoughts, hopes, and dreams of my fellow musicians, I get paralyzed with fear! It's no fun!

I've realized that when I trust my bandmates to speak up if they have a problem, I can move forward with grace and optimism. If I am clear and open about my vision and where I want the band to go, I can create clarity and openness. I can create an environment where people aren't afraid to voice concerns.

When I try to mind read, I end up doing nothing because I am so scared that someone will not be happy with something I do!

Where are you trying to read minds? Can you let go of the fear of what other people think and take action?
Do you trust the people you work with enough to voice their concerns if they have any?


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In the past two weeks, I've started to send A LOT more e-mails around booking Safety Squad.

E-mailing festivals and venues that are bigger and more prestigious than anything we've ever played before.

It's easy to let feelings of doubt, fear, and frustration creep in when I sit down to send these e-mails.

I remind myself that while they might say no or never read the e-mail, they're certainly not going to just reach out from nothing to book me on a big gig. I remind myself that we might appear to be small potatoes to them, the first step to getting a string of big exciting festival gigs is to get 1 big exciting festival gig. I remind myself that the band is REALLY good, and the show is transformative, and in order to get someone else to see that, I have to see it and believe it for myself first!

In order to get what you want, you have to be willing to ask someone else to help you get there. Who can you ask to help you get what you want today?

Lots of people play shows to empty rooms. It's not the most fun thing to perform for no one.

Here are three tips to get more people into the room

1. Send personalized invites! Not a FB “invite”, but send a text, DM, or e-mail to a person on a 1 to 1 level and tell them about your show and why you want them to be there. Create a spreadsheet with the names of people you've invited + what their response was!
2. Create content that's valuable on its own. A gig poster posted on Facebook and Instagram is good for reminding people it's happening, but it's not inherently sharable or exciting beyond that. Create videos showing off the music or the personality of the band that people will watch just for the sake of watching it, and that can point people toward your show!
3. Make the show more than a show. Create a name for the event where it's more than just a few bands standing on stage playing their songs. Consider creating a contest, raffle, or giveaway. Do something that will make it a night to remember forever. It actually takes a lot of energy to get off the couch and go to a show, so make it something so exciting and fun people don't want to miss it!
   
   What would you add? What resonates with you? What seems difficult?
   
   I would love to hear your thoughts

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1. Trust your first instinct - the first chord or note you play is what your fingers and ears heard - go with it before you start second guessing yourself.
2. Don't worry about what your other songs sound like. Just because you've used that chord or that tempo before doesn't mean you can't reuse it! You might feel like you are recycling ideas, other people might see it as your style!
3. It's perfectly OK to use simple chords, lyrics, and melodies. Simple isn't bad!
4. If you are struggling to come up with another section for a song, just start writing something else. If you have a collection of snippets written in a journal, they can become full songs if you string them together.
5. Play your half written song ideas with friends! Sometimes we slave over it so much we forget how interesting or exciting the idea we currently have is!
6. This comes from Chick Corea - Improvise a phrase, and then write down what you improvise. If you're a jazzer (lol) you are used to improvising and letting that be the melody of your solo. Why do you start to second guess the ideas you improvise once it's time to write them down?
7. If you are struggling to even pick up the pen, just write down ONE NOTE!

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When I find myself getting overwhelmed at all of the possible things I could be doing, I end up doing nothing.

When I focus on doing small amounts of work today and celebrating that work, I move the needle forward.

I am aiming to book some travel dates for Safety Squad in the 2nd half of this year. When I think about the logistics of making that all happen, I freak out and get overwhelmed. I start to tell myself I'm not organized enough or competent enough to figure that out.

When I focus on spending a little bit of time researching places to play and sending e-mails, I move the ball forward.

A tour isn't booked in an hour, it probably isn't even booked in a week! It takes consistent, simple, repeated actions. 5 e-mails is doable most days - on the days that it isn't I can aim lower and send 1 e-mail. I know that if I can stay consistent, I will have travel dates for the band that everyone is happy with!

Focus on doing today's work today. What is the smallest step you could take? Take that step - don't worry about tomorrow or the next day or 6 months from now. Just do the small thing!

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Yesterday I opened up a manuscript book to write some music in, and I saw some ideas that I wrote several years ago. I took one of these ideas and used it as a starting point to write out some new music! It was fun to be co composing alongside an old version of myself.

What I realized with this is that I had done a micro version of publishing fearlessly - the 4th step of my 5-step process to unlock creative potential. Even though I didn't share these ideas with anyone else, I still got them published onto the page. I know that I've had musical ideas rumbling in my brain that I play and sing but never write down, and then they can get lost to time. Because I wrote down this idea 5 years ago, I was able to find it yesterday and do something with it!

I started journaling almost daily starting January of 2021. I have a dozen or more notebooks filled with thoughts, ideas, ramblings, lyrics, and more over the past three years. I don't go back and look through often, but I do sometimes, and often I will find lyrics that are exciting and interesting to me! I probably have hundreds of pieces of songs written in my journal.

My main message here is to write stuff down! Write down some thoughts every day, and you will start to get better at capturing your thoughts. If you write them down just for yourself, it will help build confidence to then write down thoughts that you can share with other people. These thoughts can be written down in a million different ways - a drawing, lyrics, sheet music, prose, limerick, list, etc. The act of writing daily has changed my life for the better and it's a habit I intend to keep for the rest of my life!

Can you find 5 minutes to document something today?

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Your anxiety doesn't have to be a permanent fixture in your life. Just because in the past you have been unable to do certain things doesn't mean you can't do those in the future. Yesterday I met with a client and we brainstormed a list of 10 ways he could challenge his social anxiety. He told me that just from writing out and looking at the list, his anxiety around social interactions dropped dramatically. I'm going to share his list here, and encourage you to make a list yourself.

The prompt for this list was “what are 10 things you could do that would challenge your social anxiety?”

• Ask out a girl
• Sincerely thank the bus driver
• laugh at the movie theater out loud
• go to the pick-up game with my friends, even when it seems easier to stay home and watch youtube
• cook in front of someone
• host an event
• set a timer on my phone, then when the timer goes off, say a coherent sentence to someone
• Negotiate with a stranger
• Go to an amusement park by myself
• Use people's names in conversation when I meet them

^^ This list is one that my client and I created together. Maybe some of these resonate with you, maybe some of them don't, but hopefully just seeing a list like this can encourage you to challenge your story around your anxiety.

There's a version of you that exists that isn't afraid of people, that is comfortable with him or herself, and that can go out into the world and interact with people freely and openly. The monsters of anxiety are large and strong in today's society, and the only way to make them smaller is to go out and challenge them yourself!

What can you do today that would challenge your conception around anxiety?

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