The Musician’s Money Mindset

As predictable as a Hollywood movie ending, when someone thinks “musician” as a career choice they think; hard life, temporary, dreamer, low-income...As artists we think; all or nothing, complete sacrifice, poor until rich, make or break and often end up accepting a low-income career mindset. Well, we are here to change that, the shift must start with the way we think as musicians and money. Money doesn’t think. What gives money meaning and emotion is humanity, it’s us.

0:00:00.0 S1: I walk in to the show that explores the methods and strategies on rock and the financial side of your music business with over 40 years combined experience. Here are your host, Chris Webb and Dave Camp Kielce. To its tip can were talk about musicians and money, but we show that the root of all evil is that money, but actually be able... That's still gear out of your buddies van when she was leading out of a gig last time, I'm your host, Chris web, joined by my co-host and Kevin Costner to this podcast, Whitney Houston data. That was 92, Chris, I got my license that year, and that was the first date I took anyone on was to that movie, I cried, I cried and it's probably the last date I talk to them.

0:00:52.3 S2: I realize that. That's pretty ideas perhaps. What we should say is, You're the Bradley Cooper to this podcast. Let gaga.

0:01:00.8 S1: Okay, I'm on. Now, what the safe...

0:01:04.1 S2: As predictable as a Hollywood movie ending, when someone thinks musician as a career choice, they think hard life, temporary dreamer, low income as an artist, we think all or nothing, complete sacrifice, poor until rich, make or break and often end up accepting a low-income career mindset. Well, we're here to change all that, the shift must start with the way we think as musicians and money, money doesn't think what gives money meaning and emotion is humanity, it's us. So whatever type of money movie you have been watching, grabs and popcorn as we discussed the plates, right after this AE.

0:02:45.3 S1: Welcome back, everybody. This week's non-profit is the arts dot org throughout of Chicago, dedicated to artists, nothing of significance can be accomplished without imagination, without stretching and flexing our minds, without dreaming, three arts consider it their civic duty and privilege to champion local artists and invest in essential creative process that drives, there are fourth and touches all of us in every corner of their community to creative energy is the foundation on which the future will be built through art works to sustain and promote artists in the six county Chicago Metropolitan area. They're focused on women artists, artists of color, and deaf and disabled artists stems from the need for a diversity of voices and visions to be supported, if Chicago is to proper and inspire. To learn more, check out the three arts dot org.

0:03:37.7 S2: And make sure you rate subscribe to this podcast, leave us a comment and go to our website and sign up for our free weekly newsletter, but will deep dive into these weekly topics even further. And we'll also try to connect you to other related articles and provide other helpful resources for your music business, is this week of the week from Elinor rules about Chris. I thought I'd give her arrest for a... Seen too much lately. This week, we're starting with Dave Hemet is a mindset, it's all about how you think money is literally attracted to you or repelled from you. I also got one from Henry Ford, whether you think you can, or you think you can't, you're right. We're gonna talk about three areas today of money and mindset. The first one is money mindset, what is your relationship with money? This one might get uncomfortable for some people... Second, we're gonna talk about best practices. What does a healthy relationship mean with money, and what does it look like? And the third is how to reprogram, how do we write the ship so that you can say after the money and take away... Alright, money mindset.

0:04:57.6 S2: What is your relationship with money? Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words, your words become your habits and your habits become your realities. Jen, sincere, that's a very powerful statement for me, I'm gonna say it again. Your beliefs become your thoughts. Your thoughts become your words, your words become your habits, and your habits become your realities, that applies directly to thinking about money, think about the upbringing that we all had in our environments, and think about what your relationship with money was as a child.

0:05:39.4 S1: I would say in our household, we never really talked about it with that problem to yet that you would ever, I guess, know what your parents made, but it was pretty much known that... You don't ask people about money. Yeah.

0:05:56.9 S2: It was always a stigma right the way... And there's also that the idea of, at least in my household, my parents were wonderful people who were giving, and they're not past tense there still...

0:06:10.8 S1: My dad does listen to this pages, I'm not gonna let that happen. I wish my dad could listen to this Pocket... Sorry about that. I know is like a wrong, funny thing to say.

0:06:22.7 S2: When we're children hearing about money, different people's impact our money, how other people view each other, who has money, who doesn't have money, all of that, it all makes you think that there's a right and a wrong with what money is... But as we've said that, money is nothing but an idea, and it is what is done with money, that is actually what matters, so what is your money mindset? Your money mindset is your unique set of beliefs and your attitude about money, it drives the decisions you make about saving, spending and handling money, people who have wealth and are healthy with money, their mindset believes things like, I have the freedom to spend. But I can also tell myself, No, not to purchase something.

0:07:14.6 S1: Did you ever sign up for those free credit cards your first year of college... Oh yeah, and I got like a beach towel or something.

0:07:23.3 S2: Why does that car look so shiny and important right at that moment, like the most empowering thing you could ever have in your hand...

0:07:31.4 S1: Yeah, he just left. For me, I just left home, and I'm six hours away from the family that I had to be able to afford everything. And done at SIU, you're able to go into the bars. Or you do it, you're like.

0:07:49.9 S2: First round on me hand, then they're like decline, Oh, you're is 1000 a...

0:07:56.6 S1: No, but if you don't have those conversations about credit and debt, you don't see that, it's like, Oh, I'll pay that later, and

0:08:07.7 S2: I was terrible with credit card, that's probably a story for another day because it's not a proud story, but I was really bad with credit cards for a long time. I can't wait for those stars.

0:08:18.3 S1: I gotta build into those stories to be willing to share that.

0:08:22.2 S2: But on the other end of this, the opposite end, perhaps what a Monday mindset, a healthy money mindset would be, it's also the broker scarcity mindset, which would mean that you live a life with the constant fear and the acknowledgement that you don't have enough or that you will run out of something, this usually correlates to how you make and spend your money, but even deeper than that is that fundamental fear of loss and being without... And that's in order to live either money has a stigma, and that stigma is all over the creative space, and so how do you feel about money when you see someone making a lot of money for a commercial that has a song you don't like on it...

0:09:10.7 S1: Right, it creates a reaction in you when someone finds out your musician... And then the next question is like, Great, but what do you do for a living? And how do you pay the bills? So they're already correlating money, no money to being a musician, so... That's instilled in you at a young age too.

0:09:30.4 S2: And that's what I said in the beginning, that a lot of people, the mindset is all or not this idea that you're gonna have to survive making a little bit amount of money until you make a huge... And that's just not the reality. Are we thinking about sustainability and about our future, when we think about how we spend our money and how we make our money, are we confident with our finances or not, are you confident that you understand what your money is doing, where it's going, and certainly where it's coming from, do you have a good relationship with that money, what does it always cause a little anxiety in you? Do we avoid dealing with them because we feel overwhelmed by these situations, are we lost... Are embarrassed about where we're at financially? Do we feel like we're supposed to be somewhere else? All of these relationships with money are very complicated and they're very serious, and as artists, they can get in the way of being the best artist that you can be, and thus being the most successful that you could be, and some people feel by being stuck on the negative end of that spectrum is where their art lives, which doesn't have...

0:10:39.6 S1: It doesn't have to live there, you can still have real world emotions if you're paying your bills, if you're not living in squalor, you can still write a beautiful piece of music about living in squalor even when you're not... I just wanna say squalor one more time. I knew it.

0:10:59.9 S2: So what are best practices in the situation, what does a healthy relationship with money look like? I had a lot of funny jokes on this one, but I hope you see the old daily I decided to kinda stick with the metaphor on this one, what makes a healthy relationship with money? Well, it's a lot like sex, money is a tough conversation to have in our society, and yet we're supposed to be great at it. We're supposed to know exactly what to do and when to do it. We're ashamed when we don't get enough of it, but we're also ashamed that we wanted problems with it can be a quick way to end the relationship and can be also the biggest help to get your music videos, some serious attention. We're still comparing sex and money by the way, that you need to decide what you want in order to ever get it, it's gotta be a mind shift, I believe that it takes serious bravery to decide that you want to be wealthy. I think this industry in particular, shuns people who say something like, I wanna be rich, like that must mean, oh, so you don't care about the art.

0:12:14.3 S2: They have this image in their heads. And this is individual's problems, that by saying You wanna be rich, that must mean that's all you care about.

0:12:25.6 S1: And are you correlating that with success as well?

0:12:29.0 S2: Well, they can be separate. You could argue that success might not really be defined as wealthy or rich, but I do think that being rich can help you be success, and anything you want, you could be more successful at putting out an album, more successful at making a high quality music video, more successful at your ad campaigns, more successful at your relationships, because you'll have more time to do what you want, more time to travel, more success in finance, it means that you can be who you wanna be, be more of a giver, be more of a Donato to the causes that you care about, right? Wealth provides that impact to be much larger, so to say, I wanna be wealthy could simply mean I wanna be the biggest philanthropist that anyone's ever seen.

0:13:24.7 S1: Yeah, but I agree with you, the stigma to even the word rich, when you say wealthy, there's so many different definitions for that, but Rich doesn't have that like, Oh, you shouldn't say, you just wanna be rich, but what you're saying is you can have that feeling and you can have that goal, just don't tell people or... Retreats, such a dirty word.

0:13:55.2 S2: Right. Well, you get your shift back in order, get your ship together, I mean, the basics, of course, are still always gonna go back to savings, an emergency fund, having no bad debt that's weighing you down, a solid budget that keeps you on track of your long-term plan, and that long-term plan needs to be broken down to short-term assignments, just like we talked about in the last episode, episode number 11.

0:14:24.4 S1: But I didn't saw the search bar on a total you... I would... Last week, so sweet. Everyone could just type that in.

0:14:31.3 S2: All of this correlates back to your dreams, your life desires, they have to stay intact and being wealthy allows more people to be and do what they want, so shoot for a bigger purpose. Bigger than you, as it's been said before, in the end, money is only good for spending, saving and giving, it's what you decide to do with your life and how wealth can enhance your ability to do that, you make the difference in what money does. So then comes the question, What do our beliefs project... What... Shoot, our desires with money B, does wealth change the value of our art? Do we judge each other on our financial value and with other people's art and their financial value.

0:15:17.9 S1: Did you feel like that when you first started on your own and you had your own bills to pay and put the roof over your head, did you look at your art as a way to bring in money. Or the better things.

0:15:30.7 S2: Well, that's interesting, yeah, it felt like the goal that was the desire was that I didn't have... I could make that choice to only do music... Right, and that would be the freedom... Right, that would be the freedom I earned from making enough money off music, but... Yeah, I don't know, it makes me think though, because I actually always felt like working the other jobs that I did was only to be able to afford the things I needed to do to be able to make music. There's nothing wrong with that at all. And that's something that I think you guys are getting started. It's pretty much how it pretty much has to work at the beginning.

0:16:12.9 S1: I think that was my mindset, I didn't wanna... After my first year of college, I didn't wanna go back. I just saw myself living in a van and touring, I thought that's all I need to scope play shows, people will show up automatically in this guy they've never heard of, and if I just do it enough, I'll be successful. I think for the first five years, probably after college, I was thinking just show shows, shows... What can I do? And then as you start to work with other musicians and they depend on you booking gigs, and they're looking for money to make a living, and you have to come through for them and then also yourself on top of it, so it gets literate thinner. And then now it's a money game.

0:17:01.1 S2: Which feels dirty, right, like when a venue used to say you to sell this many tickets, that always felt insulting in some silly way, but... What artists expect?

0:17:15.7 S1: Yeah, and how do you think about it now though, as now you can see how much it costs to pay the bartenders, the sound engineer, the back line people, the on-stage engineer, the rent for the music venue.

0:17:32.8 S2: Yeah, I think there's a mindset there, right, and I think people shouldn't sign up for it if they don't think they can step up to their end of that bargain, but it's the reality of life, in order for there to be a venue, you're gonna have to sell some tickets. Yeah, well, how do we know how much to charge when we're performing, when we're touring, when we're selling our merge, some people charge 30 for a shirt, some people charge 20, some people charge 500 for the two-hour gig, some charge less or more, there's such variation and what we give ourselves value as it is a part of how we see money and our net worth and how we see ourselves and are worth in money, just charging too little reflect our value of ourselves... That's a tough question to answer.

0:18:26.2 S1: But also as musicians, it's not just... I guess my point of view is not just for yourself, but for the music community, I talked to my friend Chad, we were just hanging out last night rehearsing for... So what we have coming up, and we were talking about the minimum payment for longer bar gigs, they really haven't changed over the last 20 years as westernmost... Yeah, how is it possible? And it's like if you're going to take the 75 for three hours, you're just screwing yourself and all your friends in the long run.

0:19:08.8 S2: You know... Yeah, and we better have some work to olave a long conversation about how to know how much to charge that is on their list of episodes, and I'd say the short of it is that you should... Once you decide what your worth is, you need to stick to it, and that means when things get hard and someone starts trying to negotiate, you need to stick to what you believe you're worth, and there's a lot of studies that show that in all businesses, when they stick to that price. You become successful at that price, right, and if you start caving, you tend to start keeping a lot and that's a problem, and people will take advantage of that quickly... Absolutely. So how do you write the ship? It's a whole lot of shit that we have to re-program, we have to turn and think differently, an abundance mindset refers to the paradigm that there's already enough out there for everyone, we must decide if we are looking in our lives with a scarcity mentality or an abundance mentality, we cannot let our fear of being broke caused us to sacrifice being a creator of all that we have to give one a loss if the grades of our present and past had succumbed to this scarcity mindset, being good with money should help you should enable you to be creative, if that's your desire, not encourage you to choose a safer occupation.

0:20:40.1 S2: I agree with that last comic, wholeheartedly, you can start a business from working backwards to what you need to accomplish to reach those monetary goals, and not only is it being creative, but being savvy, learning from your audience, learning from your business partners and the people you play music with all of those things can be expressed in a creative way, and if you're not a payment tension to those things, then you should go get a safer occupation, 'cause it's hard. This is hard work, and if you show up with that end goal that this is what you wanna do, then go after it and learn how to be creative in all the things you need to know to make it work, not just the music part of it, where do you spend your time... Changing your mindset means changing where you give your attention, what If you directed your time to making money more than how to just make it by making sales instead of shopping for sales, being the change instead of digging in the couch for it.

0:21:54.7 S1: Which brings me to people who live in you change what the Omega with this, put it in the jar, and now that you can charge you to counter, banks won't even come for you.

0:22:10.8 S2: That's such an inconvenient now, which brings me to manifesting. It's amazing how once you put yourself out there and make the decision that it's going to happen for you, how things and opportunities begin to appear, and don't misunderstand this, those opportunities and those things were already there, perhaps you are just now ready for them. Could it be this negative attitude, this broken mindset about money that was blocking you from ever getting those money-making opportunities? So what's the single biggest first step in abundance mindset then, as you write this ship... And do you're gonna say ship again, perhaps it will be that realization that the negativity towards money is simply connected to the fear of failing, or even scarier, what if it's really what you think you're capable of, if you don't go for it, you're already failing, so you're already there. So the abundance mindset, the wealth, desire for wealth is what should drive you, like seeing yourself wealthy is a part of success and allows you to be the full artist that you're capable of being, when it comes down to it, it's an abundance mindset is about being willing to take the risk and to listen to your dreams, your aspirations, being willing to put yourself out there and be seen and judged and even fail, so if this makes you upset or makes you motivated, or does a little bit of both, take some time and reflect on that, and then send us an email, Dave, how can they get a hold of us? They can connect with us at musicians pcar dot com or send us an email at musicians cipher at gmail.

0:24:04.8 S2: And if you haven't already, make sure you rate subscribe, comment, and follow us on your podcast listening station of choice, as always, 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 day taming and myself, Chris web, please stay. Stay healthy and take care of each other.

0:24:29.7 S1: Is Joe Vitale said to help us all remember, money will always match your mindset. This is musician. Steve Caravelle, nothing on this show should be considered specific personal or professional advice, please consult an appropriate tax legal fitness or financial professional for individualized advice. Individual results are not guaranteed, and oldest cat strategies have the potential for profit or loss, those are operating on behalf of musicians temperature, LLC exclusively. I could just sit someo