Episode 29
Musicians and Perfectionism
When learning to get really good at something such as an instrument or songwriting. Practice makes perfect is often what we say. We are striving for perfection in order to bring out the best we possibly can in ourselves as artists. But in business, being a perfectionist can often slow down your ability to grow. As your music business grows, you eventually will have too many things that need attending that you simply cannot do alone and be forced to release some control, even if you still believe you can do it best.
0:00:01.5 S1: Welcome to the show that explores the methods and strategies on block and the financial side of your music business with over 40 years combined experience.
0:00:11.1 S2: Here are your host.
0:00:12.4 S1: Chris Webb and Dave tank.
0:00:16.3 S2: Welcome to musician Stephan. When we talk about musicians and money, is it perfectionism or is it anti-perfectionism that makes you successful in the music business? I'm your host, Chris Webb, joined by the Perfect co-host, Dave Taman.
0:00:30.8 S1: Thanks for having me back, Chris. I must be the perfect co-host, 29 invites. I'm very proud of that. And hopefully I make it 30. Fingers crossed.
0:00:41.5 S2: Coto, the week is from Shannon L. Elder, there is no perfection.
0:00:48.4 S1: Only beautiful versions of brokenness. Sangli right there. Yeah.
0:00:53.2 S2: Right on how many people that were listening to stop that same thing. It's totally hate. Song Are thinks, Oh, I'm gonna steal there, when learning to get really good at something such as an instrument or song writing, practice makes perfect is often what we say. We are striving for perfection in order to bring out the best we possibly can in ourselves as artists, but in business, being a perfectionist can often slow down your ability to grow as your music business grows, you eventually will have too many things that need attending that you simply cannot do it alone, and you'll be forced to release some control, even if you still believe that you can do a best. Today, we are going to talk through where being a perfectionist helps you thrive as a musician, and also areas where it limits your growth in your business. So stick around.
0:01:47.9 S1: The number one accounting software for small businesses, QuickBooks can make multiple spreadsheets and mental math a thing in the past when it comes to managing your money. You can see it all, you can do it all in QuickBooks. With invoicing and QuickBooks, get paid online twice as fast and paper and voicing, connect your bank and credit card accounts and quick book and get cash flow insights at a glance, deeper business insights for smarter decisions, view profit and loss or balance sheet reports instantly with a click of a button and simplify all your bookkeeping, go to musicians tar dot com deals to grab your free trial today or 50% off for first three months. Welcome back, everybody. The People's Music School is the only completely free music school serving Chicago Metropolitan area of children. Music inspires young minds to reach beyond the boundaries of their world, it offers limitless possibilities for creativity, achievement and growth socially, emotionally and intellectually, they invite you to explore the myriad of ways the People's Music School provides access to music for youth in their community. They operate with a lean staff, faculty members who are professionally trained and actively performing across Chicago the country and the world, an equivalent of 20 full-time jobs through family volunteer hours, a full community effort to support their students, learn more and people's music school dot org.
0:03:08.7 S1: And you know what, Chris, I can already feel This is gonna be a good episode because we're talking about being perfect at things, and you just seem so calm, cool. And relaxed right now. Some smooth. I think this is gonna be our best episode yet... Thanks, Dad. I think it's this herbal tea is just so the throat... We're gonna have spirits for our 30th episode next week. Oh, nice. Are we... I'm just asking.
0:03:37.9 S2: Oh, well, we should. I mean, it's... Our last episode of the season.
0:03:41.5 S1: Yeah, I mean, do just all you want, you know, we might be back for season two
0:03:51.1 S2: To... Well, make sure before the season is over that you have read... I subscribe to this podcast and leave us a comment, let us know how we're doing, go to our website and check out all the resources and discounts that Dave is collected for you all you're there, sign up for Scalable newsletter for other related articles that might help you with your music business, it sounds like we've already started drinking.
0:04:18.5 S1: Are just so tired and slap happy.
0:04:25.7 S2: I wanna start this episode out, but making it clear that I'm not saying being a perfectionist is bad, I kinda think I am a perfectionist in many ways, and I find I often benefit from it, for example, all my gear is always where I left it, all the cables are wound up nicely, all of my files and my emails I put in the exact same spot that I left them in when I organized it the day before... God.
0:04:51.1 S1: Yes it is. Everybody wanna do this? Screen Share horses, how many emails I have. And once he started crying, I, Chris, and he's like, I just feel so bad for you. There's so much unfinished business there that you'll never get to...
0:05:07.7 S2: Well, the other thing that always seems to work out for me is it all my microphones and all of my other things that take batteries, they always have fresh batteries, including all my kid's toys, and that was not something that I experience as he... Caiman point to it, and I think that it's a valuable thing to have...
0:05:24.7 S1: The fire engine, Cintas, I would take the batteries out of that, he just preached it and be like, Oh, I don't know.
0:05:34.8 S2: It seems to have gotten wet
0:05:36.5 S1: Somehow your garage was like that too, it was just a cable cord of beauty, but everything tightly, you will... And put it in its place. Yeah, do you ever come out in LA, Use this garage... Oh yeah, I'm here all the time. Do you make a mess?
0:05:51.5 S2: No, never, but we're gonna talk today about the good, the bad, and the ugly, all of it together, where does actual perfection live. Let's start by talking about some of the benefits of being a perfectionist besides my already listed items, I'm gonna learn from you on this one... Yeah, well, some of the advising for musicians benefits, right, you tend to be prepared, you tend to use all the resources that you perhaps have at your disposal for keeping organized for your shows and your schedule, and most of your calendar and your song writing sessions and all your lyrics are put in a good place, and when you save your files from your recording sessions, you know exactly where they are, you've got them backed up on a hard drive, those are all good things to do. It saves you a lot of headache and lost hard... The heartache of losing something, when you really value that our ideas, when you're writing or when you come up with your... And ideas, we all come up with random ideas, and I always say I wrote at least 10 number one songs, but I forgot them. And that was before cell phones.
0:06:58.3 S2: Probably, because now I always write everything. I'll just voice memo that thing, any idea I... The moment I get it, I don't know if that is perfectionism, but I... It's in the anal retentive habit of mine that I... 'cause I have such a fear of missing out on an idea that I just have, and I do think that a lot of examples of greatness comes from great practice, and that can be a part of perfectionism too, the way that you practice and how focused your practices we've talked about that in past
0:07:35.0 S1: Ebony. Absolutely, we certainly have. Thanks for the contribution. Crushing this episode.
0:07:46.0 S2: And then business, there are some benefits, there's a lot of benefits actually to being a perfectionist, especially when you're just starting out, a lot of the same kind of stuff, shit gets done. And that's really important because there's a lot of stuff to get done when you start a business, as we all know, you have to be able to juggle a lot of different areas and make sure that none of them fall apart because they kinda all hold each other up in that way. Also reliability, knowing that you're gonna show up on time. All that, I trust a lot of people that I've been working with for a lot of years, and I know that they all have some of these attributes, a lot of these habits about being reliable, about being the ones that will always stand up when I need them, to and do a great job at their role and whatever we're doing.
0:08:38.7 S1: You do have a good crew that... Not to say that because I'm a part of it, but having nothing to do with the musician skill level, you know, beyond that, that they're gonna be on time, they're gonna be professional, they're gonna represent your brand if you're in control of that, looking for that location. And that's gotta take some off your shoulders, just to know that you know, your crew is showing up on the business end of things as well.
0:09:08.9 S2: Right. And there's a lot of... A lot of... Especially, it tends to be something to learn... I don't know, a lot of musicians aren't... I don't Like to generalize, but a lot of musicians aren't really born with that reliability, not... It's something you learn from your mistakes and you learn and you get a little bit more deliberate about it, and you start to care about it, but more I guess is probably part of that to you, but also you focus on the long game as a perfectionist in business, you're not just out there for the moment, you're building... You've got a plan. I just like learning new tunes, you learn new tips and tricks and business to help you get more meaningful and financial return on your time and money, so that's also a benefit of being a perfectionist, if you will, but then there's the limiting side, the negatives of being a perfectionist of having that perfectionism deep in your blood and starting up, perhaps we'll talk about some musicians, perfectionism as a weakness here, perhaps too much practice can wear you down. I found that sometimes if I practice a song too many times, the songs, when you say word too many times and it just has to sound really goofy, I know there's a name of that, but that same kind of thing happens to me when I played the song too many times.
0:10:31.1 S2: And I'm like, What? Is this right? You know, singing is right now, 'cause you've heard it too many times, and I just can't tell anymore...
0:10:40.8 S1: We're talking about Symantec citation, it's a psychological phenomenon, Chris, which repetition causes a word or phrase to temporary lose meaning to the listener who then receives the speech is repeated meaningless. Wow, surprise, you know.
0:10:56.6 S2: Thanks for blowing that engage, but seriously, it also can be really annoying when you are a perfectionist, I know that from personal experience that I can be over the top sometimes about my organization or over the top about making sure everyone is... Knowing what their role is and being a little bit maybe almost to the point of... I don't wanna say this, but to micro-manage, I can be a perfectionist, weakness in the management role, and being the leader of a band, sometimes you can find yourself doing that to defendants. I try very hard not to do that.
0:11:36.6 S1: So what you're saying is that I shouldn't really try to be perfect because if I'm already annoying without being perfect, that if I strive for that, that my annoying level could go up even more...
0:11:51.2 S2: Yeah, Google, what that's called. It's like double annoying. I don't know, but maybe... Because honestly, yeah, I mean, you can have one negative built on another negative... A double negative does.
0:12:05.9 S1: Exactly, yeah. Which equals a positive, Chris. So do you put this back into the... And that simply is a pros.
0:12:14.3 S2: That's definitely not insane, you can also push people away, and that's kind of the result of micro-managing seven, I think a lot of people who work for micro-managers don't stay long because of that reason, managing makes people move away. Quit the band. And on top of that, just to add that little side note that we both know that the number one cause of fans not being successful is because they break up, and it can also bleed into your family and friends relationships, they can suffer as well from being a perfectionist.
0:12:57.2 S1: 'cause it's not done your way... You're constantly judging.
0:13:00.9 S2: Right? Especially if you're already talking about music non-stop and no one in your family cares, and being a perfectionist about those discussions that no one wants to listen to...
0:13:13.2 S1: Yeah, it's gonna make 'em suffer. I think my family got me back for so many years that I would only talk about music and now they own for Jim Johns, and when we sit down at the kitchen table, I wanna go back to visit all... Everyone talks about his dungeon, the Clarke... Oh yeah. Number five, they're cutting in half what... Come on.
0:13:41.0 S2: And sometimes best inspiration comes from crazy Spotty, which can be denied if you're too much of a perfectionist.
0:13:51.2 S1: So what about being a perfectionist and business... What would you say? The first thing is that limits you...
0:13:56.6 S2: Well, I'd say the number one thing, and this comes from me talking to so many people in business lately, is that perfectionism limits growth, and that's mainly because you simply can't grow big alone. No great business was built by one person, the idea might have started one person just like a great song idea, but in order for that song to get to the end result, most of the time, it needs a lot of people, especially when you move towards the marketing and the release... And it's one of those things where you try to do everything yourself, you eventually either get burned out or you just fall apart.
0:14:43.3 S1: You never ship your art... Do you ever ship your pants... At one time I shut my bed cost so much money. Right, and that is very expensive, but if you can... Now, can't... The project never gets done, if you don't ship... You have to get the product out. Your business has to exist. It can't exist in a vacuum. You can't make an album and keep trying to make it better and better and better, because that'll never be released, same with product, same with organizing your business, starting your business, so you have to ship, you have to get to your fans to the end result of what you're building, and if you're always trying to make it more perfect, you're never gonna ship, so it prevents you from shipping... Yeah, bananas to...
0:15:37.4 S2: That's an interesting idea too, because it really is true that the best art depicts the brokenness of human nature, the imperfection that humans really are and feel and think and do, and so to try to make that perfect, it's strange because we find perfection in past people's albums, because it captured the imperfection of humans or the moment of the idea and the feeling, and that's really bizarre.
0:16:14.0 S1: It's one of those weird spiraling thoughts that really take you this change places, speaking of that, you should check out. If you have an already documentary with Mark Ronson, AOV called watch the sound, and the first episode is on auto-tune, and how some people use it to be creative and how others just used it to be better or to not show those imperfections, and especially when your pain for studio time. One thing that I never had a problem with would be just like, Just fix it, I'd say, I can't... Time is wasting here. I'm gonna have to sing it live this way, so just fix it, so right out of the gates, the society is just saying, you're eating, he's just like you're not using it the way... You shouldn't even be able to tell it's there, which I think when I use it, I use it, but those are the things that the audience loves the most, is when you have that inflection that's not perfect. That they can relate to the most. So I don't know, it really made me think of my decisions in the password is just like I just... I've tried so many times to hit that because I might have just wrote it or I didn't practice it enough, that was just like, Just fix it, 'cause I know I'm gonna hit it when I do it live, and I think next project, I might just leave it alone.
0:17:41.7 S2: Well, and that's the big question, right? You being too much of perfection, they were you taking away the art of that moment because of perfectionism.
0:17:50.6 S1: Yeah, maybe, I mean, I couldn't even listen to it with it being wrong, you know, it just wasn't something that I enjoyed that wrong, but not right on...
0:18:04.6 S2: Yes. Well, and all of this perfectionism, when you're auto-tuning too much, you can re-burn out, we're gonna be burned out when we're trying to make everything too perfect, and honestly, that is true, that when you listen back to something that you've perfected... You don't love it. Sometimes you don't love it. You're like, Where's the life in this? Right, and how hard did I work on that? And now I'm gonna go start over and do this, and again, that kind of thing can burn you out.
0:18:34.6 S1: Think of this podcast, if we didn't just go for it, I would have never started because it would have taken... We're still trying to get better and get this flow down right and make it something that helps other people in a way that they find it entertaining and get information that they can use, but if we were trying to be perfect about it, it would have never existed. Obviously, by how long it takes you to edit these... None of my jokes, I think I mail one out of every 22.
0:19:11.7 S2: Well, and there could be missed opportunities with business growth potential when it comes to perfectionism, from being too narrow vision or by your current workload being too heavy because you won't give up anything.
0:19:24.8 S1: And with that you don't walk them new ideas or change... You have such a, like you said, narrow vision on the landscape in front of you that you can't open yourself up to see different ways to get to your goal.
0:19:36.7 S2: Well, and this whole topic came about because I was talking to a mentor and I was told that if I don't gain control of some of this perfectionism, oddly, by letting go of some control, that my business growth will suffer and potentially I'll hit a peak and I'll never really have a chance to prosper to its full potential, and I share this because I think a lot of us, as in all of you listening and us included, we share this desire to be very successful in music and business, and likely... You can also benefit from analyzing your perfectionism and identifying areas where you might need to adjust in order to grow to your full potential was said... So what is the answer then? What's the answer here? Well, like most things in nature, it's balanced, nature is the perfect example here because nature is perfect in its beauty all the way down to the lines and the patterns and a leaf, and yet everything it does has an intent for growth and cooperation. Even when the trees are making a mess of all that shit that's dropping what they're planting seeds, the shipping, the being all over the place.
0:21:00.8 S2: And they're planting seeds in an effort to thrive, so you must strive for perfection in our craft, down to every line of our song and a pattern of our beats, but also embrace a work environment of organization, inconsistency, and simultaneously, we must allow the branches of our business to grow and sometimes make a giant mess without us trying to control everything, if we wanted to grow a great forest from our talent. So what do you want? What do you need? Are you preventing your potential and ability to grow and thrive because you're holding on to too much control, or is it that you need to bring in a bit more perfectionism to be simply clear and to clear out the garbage... Just to clear space, because right now, there's no room for anything to grow as gigawatts
0:22:04.4 S1: Since the moment we started talking and knowing is half the battle.
0:22:08.6 S2: So does and donuts... Don't change yourself. That's not the answer here, but do you find balance to make your attributes...
0:22:20.0 S1: Assets. No, I think mentioning assets and shipping as much as possible is something... It's pretty important here.
0:22:29.3 S2: Have you ever seen the shipping ship? Shipping, shipping ships. That's a real thing. I've seen it serious. So your action step for this week is peer review, Find a partner or mentor, use whoever it is that you connect with and have them help you, or if you're just two peers, you can help each other, see those branches of your business that needs some attention. One of the things that we're working on, I'm working on releasing that this podcast is editing it all myself, I need to let go, and eventually that's going to happen, but not yet, but I know that it's limiting me because it does take a long time and it's something that someone else can do. So there's mine for the podcast.
0:23:17.9 S1: So does that mean that all my jokes will be left in... This is gonna be a longer podcasting season. Sure.
0:23:24.2 S2: That's a risk we're gonna have to day.
0:23:27.4 S1: Why does all our followers leave?
0:23:32.2 S2: 'cause Dave shipped all over the place, well, we know your time is valuable and we appreciate you spending this time with us and bring... And being a part of this community, it is our hope that you will feel that sense of community here is a tip jar and that you'll help spread the word and make us all get stronger together. What's the best way to get ahold of us? Stay.
0:23:54.4 S1: You can check us out at musicians-Tihar dot com, we'll send us an email and musicians to a Gmail and is always.
0:24:02.5 S2: Thank you for joining us and remember there is already enough for everyone, you just need to know how to get it until next time on behalf of data and myself, Chris Welles, stay healthy and take care of your trade in both good business and good music, the more you let it out and the more I can go... This is a musician.
0:24:26.9 S1: Tipton
0:24:29.9 S2: On this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice, please consult an appropriate tax legal business or financial professional for individualized advice, individual relocate and all discuss strategies have the potential for profit as the house are operating on behalf of the musicians, Timur LLC, exclusively Perseus. I-Ouse.