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The Dreaded Plan B!
As an artist, I have often been approached with this question: if music didn’t pan out, what was your plan B? To which I would reply: I have no plan B. I know this will make many of you gasp in shock, but let me explain. For me, not doing music was never an option. Having a plan B meant investing time in something besides music, and I wasn’t willing to do that. There’s a mindset that comes with having a Plan B that I wanted to stay far away from. Accepting a Plan B, in my opinion, meant admitting in some small way that I wasn’t good enough for Plan A, and I would not accept that. I find that this is a common trend among the successful artists, the idea that you make it, or else…
I find it funny that this question often led to discussions of how few people make it in this industry, and how important it was for me to have a plan in case things didn’t go the way I wanted. I say funny because, at the time I was getting this question, I had just started my career. Of course, neither I nor my chosen path was perfect, or anywhere close for that matter, but my gosh I thought, give me a break and let me at least chase my dream for a while before you come at me with doubt!
I firmly believe any career takes time to nurture and build. As an artist, you are a business, so if you are going to be successful, you need to put in some serious time to build yourself and get your name out there. This does not happen overnight, in a year, two years, or four years. It will take time. And as I mentioned earlier, taking on a plan B means sacrificing some of the time you could use to work on your art to work on something that’s less important to you. Now don’t get me wrong, many people have to take on side jobs to support their art, but when someone approaches me and tells me they want to be a singer “more than anything else,” but they are planning to go to school for bi-tech as a backup, I feel like they’ve already decided they won’t make it as a performer.
If someone wanted to be a doctor, but decided to attend business school as a backup, people would think they were crazy. Being a doctor takes some serious time and schooling. How could anyone possibly work towards being a doctor and attend business school without sacrificing one for the other? But, is working towards being a doctor that different than working towards being an artist? Both professions require a lot of time an effort in order to be done effectively. And if you are trying to excel in two fields, trying to put time an effort into both of them, you better hate sleep and love coffee, because you’ll be lacking the first and in need of the latter.
All of this being said, I want to clarify something: I know that plan A will not always lead us to the destination we had imagined. Sometimes plan A takes us somewhere we didn’t plan on, and that’s okay. When I entered the music world, I didn’t think I would be teaching, but I absolutely love what I do, and I feel like I have the best of two worlds now. I get to pass on my knowledge and help others while creating my own music. Even though this was not where I expected my plan A to lead, this is where it took me, and it’s been pretty amazing! Sticking with plan A instead of plan B might lead you down a road you didn’t intend to travel, but sometimes it’s just what you need. So, don’t give up. Keep moving forward[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]