Headliner Mindset Community Call - A Peek Inside The Community

Next round of the Headliner Mindset coaching group/community starts 10/15!
https://www.nikcherwink.com/headlinermindset

This episode is a live recording of our weekly Community Call where members are able to ask questions and get support on any topic they choose. From music business questions to personal issues/challenges, everything is welcomed and we dive deep into all of it.

As part of the community, everyone gets access to these calls indefinitely. The core part of the program includes 8 weeks of video lessons, exercises and weekly calls with a cohort of 10 people. PLUS they get lifetime access to these weekly community calls, monthly guest Q&A's and a private Discord.

If you're interested in joining this next round, see the link above and send me a DM in Instagram to set up a call!

https://www.instagram.com/nikcherwink

Transcript

0:00

the artists that are trying to go full time and the artists that are already full time. I find myself bringing them all back to the same place. Find your joy. Find what's fun. Right back to the energy. how am I feeling energetically? So why are we dance in the beginning of the call? Yeah. I am consciously bringing myself into the energetic state that I want to be in. I want to be having fun. I want to be feeling joy. I want to be feeling inspiration. So let me find that first, then let me make some music.

Nik: 0:39

What's up, everybody. Welcome to the headliner mindset podcast. I have a really special episode for you today because I am about to launch the next round of the group coaching program that I run. And I figured rather than just telling you about it, how about I show you firsthand. So this episode is a live recording of our weekly community call from last week. If you guys are interested in joining, just shoot me a DM on Instagram and we can set up a call. The next round starts October 15th and we'd love to have you in there with us.

1:05

Hell, yeah, you guys welcome to today's headliner mindset community call. I'm so excited, uh, because we're doing a podcast, we're doing this one live. I'm about to launch the next round of the headliner mindset coaching program group community. I'm so excited to welcome in the next round of people, which I limit to just 10. And I figured, you know what? What better way? Cause sometimes y'all hear me like pop into the podcast and I, I like to slide my little like, you know, 32nd commercial into the middle of the episode. But I was like, what? Why not just completely open the door and show everybody what we actually do in this community and on these calls. So today this is our community call. We also have a cohort call. Wow. People are going through the eight week program. Um, that's specifically for the cohort that goes over the actual content of the program. But this is the community call. This is once you guys have already gone through. The eight weeks of the content, you've gone through it with your cohort. Uh, we just have these calls running every single Thursday. So some of you guys were just in this last cohort. Some of you guys are from, you know, months ago and are still showing up. And, uh, excited to, uh, peel back the curtain. And show people how we get down over here. So, uh, the first thing that we do, y'all, y'all that are listening to the podcast, you didn't get to see how we actually start these calls. We all just had a little dance party. That's my favorite part of these calls, because I am really big on energy. You guys will hear me talk about energy all the time, and we can choose what kind of energy we want to be in. I think the best kind of energy we can be in is to be inspired, to be excited, to be in a high vibrational frequency. So, uh, yeah. That's how we start these calls. Let's put ourselves, let's intentionally put ourselves into that kind of energy. You know, a lot of times we're naturally not there, right? We've been working all day. We got fucking life. We got challenges. Uh, we might be at like a lower energy space. So, uh, before we have these calls, we hop on today. We got down with some tech nine with some gangster rap. That was really fun. So. I'm feeling good. I'm excited to dive in. Uh, I want to spend the first five minutes of this call doing what we do, which is celebrating wins. I'm huge on celebration. We got to celebrate the milestones, the big things and the small things. So let's just take like five minutes. We'll do a quick round of wins, 30 seconds or less. What are we celebrating today? You guys. I'm celebrating on Tuesday. I had a fantastic artist. They just hanging out outside and just enjoying the weather and just relaxing. I've been going, going, going for so long. And it was nice to just take a break and chill. Hell yeah. Yeah, we need that. We all need that. Good job, dude. I'll go ahead. I'm celebrating. I'm actually getting really excited about the future of uncertainty. I was starting to feel really compressed and the challenges ahead of me started to feel like a Rubik's Cube from infinity. And lately things, I feel like I've been transcending that. So it's like not even having solutions to what's coming up ahead of me, but just like rising above it. So it feels like I can breathe again. Yeah. And just focus on what I'm trying to do. So that's pretty awesome. Hell yeah. What's been helping you rise above it? I feel like, uh, really taking care of myself. I've been really inspired by all of you who've been doing the hard 75 and also spending more time in silence. Uh, I've noticed that like. I've been either producing, and then if I'm going to cook something, I'm putting on my headphones and listening to a podcast, so I've been constantly getting battered with input, so more silence has been really good, and like, going out for a run with no music, really helpful. Yeah, fuck yeah. Yeah, I'm just celebrating, like, a bunch of opportunities, financial, new teachers that I was willing to teach that I thought I didn't have access to. So like, yeah, there's just a lot of abundance going on. Let's go, baby. Let's go now. Now, just just a quick reminder y'all that when we are celebrating, we are not just making that mental checklist of here's the things I did. Here's the things I'm happy about and just living in the mind. But we are actually bringing ourselves into the vibrational frequency in the energetic state of celebration. This is my favorite part because I get to celebrate all of you. I get to celebrate everybody on this call and I get to actually feel that energy of celebration when I'm feeling that energy and I'm living in that energy, I'm living in that vibrational frequency. I am then. Attracting that kind of energy into my life. So I don't even have to celebrate my own wins. That's honestly just a little secret. That's why I'm a fucking coach because I just get to live in the energy of celebration so much. And that just brings more of that kind of stuff into my life. So remember when we are celebrating, we're all, we are actually celebrating everybody that's sharing over here. So Jack, fuck yeah, baby, let's go. All right. I'll jump in next. So, um, I put out like my last edit before Where I went on my trip to Thailand and when I like literally yesterday this DJ named DJ Ralph He has like a hundred thousand followers played it in his like monthly like mix And it's like gonna be sent out like it's, you know, out there for like his 100, 000 viewers. So that was super sick. So just like organically putting my track out there, someone found it and played it. And now I'm getting more follows, more downloads and just feels great. All the hard work's worth it. Let's go, baby. Let's go. And I want to, I just real quick, I'm going to jump in. I want to, I want to encourage you to not just let Your music be organically found. That's rad that that happened. Fuck yeah. Celebrating that. And now go send that shit out to 50 DJs. Go send that out as my personal challenge to you, Steve, putting you on the spot, go send your stuff out to 50 DJs before our next call, right? Cause obviously, obviously it's good. Obviously people want it. So there's probably a bunch more people that are really going to rinse that out. So let's be proactive about that as well. Hell yeah. Let's fucking go, baby. Let's fucking go. I'll hop in. Um, I'm playing another set on Saturday. Super stoked. So it's just honestly the biggest one about it is just getting back into the groove of everything after taking like a little bit of a break. And just going back into gratitude and asking the universe, like, I'm here for it. Let's go. And then literally the next day, just boom, after talking to Ember about bookings and everything, it just like came naturally. So super stoked. Yeah. Isn't it wild how that works? Like, oh, let me just Ask the universe for what I want. Let me put myself out there. Let me make a declaration. Let me shift into that energy of gratitude, shift into that energy of excitement. And then all of a sudden, boom, literally 24 hours later. Here we go. I'm telling you guys, it's not a fucking coincidence. That's how this works. Celebrating you for practicing that. Kiana, great job. Ember, I see you got your hand up. Your little virtual Lego hand. I have like two wins. One, I went to a networking event yesterday and got to connect with Loren Padman. He's, uh, president of Dimock. I met him before, like, on a Zoom call because I interviewed for a job there. But it was cool just, like, catching up with him, like, just at a separate event. So it was cool for that. And then a second one I want to add is since I've been doing for clients. I had an idea for a reel that when editing it, it wasn't coming out well. The client wanted to put it out anyways, and it got her a lot of attention, including a handful of people asking, Hey, who makes your content? So they actually got me two other clients also, in addition, when I was like, I don't know, it's not right. So this, I was like ready to scrap the project. And it made me Way more work and a happy client. So two cool wins. Let's go. I just, I have the biggest smile on my face right now because I'm just reflecting on you and I working one on one together like a year ago and you wouldn't even make a fucking post. Like you had so much resistance to social media and now you're like not only killing it for your project, you're making social media for other people. You're getting hired to do it. Like what a fucking transformation. It's weird. I've leaned into things I never thought I'd be doing. Like, for example, even making techno and all of those things that I leaned into that I had resistances to have opened more doors for me than the doors that I thought I was supposed to walk through, for example. So yeah, like social media, I was posting once every like three months before. Now it's three times a week. Plus I'm making like 12 other pieces or more a week. So yeah. Let's go. It is a lot though. It is definitely a lot though, but Yeah. Well, that's what we're asking for. Anyone that's on this call is asking for a lot. I'm asking for a different kind of life. I'm asking for a lot of success. I'm asking for a lot of fans. I'm asking for a lot of followers. I'm asking for a lot of money. Alright, I'm asking to live a certain kind of life that, if I truly want that, that is going to require a lot from me. So fuck yeah. Love that. It is a lot. Let's go. Cause I don't, what, what's, what's the alternative? Do we want a little? Do I want a little life? Do I want a little success? Hell no. Right. I love to hear that. I'll go ahead and share a win right now. Uh, got to go to lost lands this last weekend. That was so rad. Got to celebrate with my client Sippy and see her go out there and just absolutely crush it on main stage in front of thousands of people. It was so, so fun. What I really want to celebrate just, just, just for me, my little humble brag, I had, I had three different people come up, and recognize me like two people that were just randomly out of the crowd that I was walking by and they saw me, they're like, Hey, I listened to your podcast. I've listened to like every episode of your podcast. And that was so cool. So shout out guy. Guy was one of the guys that I met. And this other guy sub rec shout out. I know you guys are listening. I'm glad y'all stopped me. That was really cool to say what's up. And also just on that note, that's what I said to both of them. I was like, yo. Like, that's exactly what you got to be doing is putting yourself out there. Either of them could have just watched me walk by and not say anything. You could see your favorite artist someday and be like, Oh shit. Like, Oh, there's that person. Right. But to have the courage to go up and say, what's up to be proactive, make that connection. Right. never know what comes from that. So, uh, I love seeing that encouraging everybody to do the same thing. Now, this is our. Our weekly community call. This is the call that you guys, get to come back to, as I say, really for lifetime access to this call and to this community, and. There's no agenda for this call. This is the hour of the week that we get to come and really just talk about whatever it is, right? Whether that's personal issues, things that you're going through in your life, creative blocks, or we want to dive into business. Uh, I think our last call, we got really nerdy on our last call and we started diving into like, you know, Performance rights organizations. And like, we were really going deep into like royalties and stuff. And we, we got really nerdy on that one. That was fun. We actually hadn't touched on that topic yet, but, um, this is just an open space for anybody to bring any topic that they want to the call. So. What's up you guys? What do you have for me today? What do we want to dive into? I can jump in first. So, I've got this goal of, with my AI project, Rain, of getting it to 50 characters. I'm at 42. And then I started, I gave myself a little bit of a break and I'm feeling a little bit of inertia getting it kicked back up. But part of that is I've also been writing music a lot more and I feel like I'm getting drawn towards that and I'm having a lot of fun with that, but it's like splitting my focus. So I guess how should I approach that I'm, my goal is to get to 50 people I've already got, I think, six more people signed up, but like, at that point, I'm like, you know, I'm in this point of being pulled like pulled in two different directions. And so I'm just not, I'm having a hard time kind of balancing that. Yeah. So just to give some context to the listeners, Alex, Artifex, you are creating AI, like you're creating a personalized, customized AI, super, super cool. and of course you're also creating music, you're developing your artist project. What I'm hearing is that, both of these are taking up time from you and you're feeling a little bit split between where to allocate your time. Exactly. All right. Let me ask you this. Do you have enough time to do both? I think so. A hundred percent you do. I know that you do. That was a rhetorical trick question. Fuck yeah, you 100 percent do. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. So, what is the real issue here? You have time to do both. I feel like it's just like, I'm in this space of, I also got another potential opportunity to go make some money making an app. And I'm like, I'm putting that on the side because I'm putting all the energy towards these two things. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's, it's this point where I'm, so, I mean, I grew up pretty poor and like, I've got these money insecurities and I have enough money in the bank, but I'm still just like, There's that part in the back of my head that's like, well, I still need to go. I'm not making any money right now because I'm getting these things built up. And, you know, there's that part that's like, okay, I need to go find some way to make some money because until that's happening, it's, you know, the bank count is just draining and I've got time, but like, there's that, that, I guess, uh, just natural voice in my head. That's like, well, you need to, you need to hurry the fuck up and, You know, start making some money. for sure. Anybody else ever feel that sometimes like, Oh shit, I gotta make some money. What am I doing? Spending all this time, you know, fucking making music and doing my passion and my, my, my creativity. Right. When is this going to pay off? When am I going to make money from it? What's cool, Alex, where you're at is you, this, this AI thing, like this, this is a business, right? This is not. I'm just making these things for fun. Like you have an idea for a business here, right? Yeah. So this is also the big shift that you're getting to step into. You just left working for a corporate job, right? That pays you a, you know, a good paycheck every other week. You're used to that. Exactly. You're taking your first steps towards being self employed and being an entrepreneur, right? This comes with the territory uncertainty. Comes with the fucking territory, right? The path of being an artist is this thing going to work out? We're going to carry that heavy baggage of uncertainty with us. So we just have to make friends with it. I haven't had a steady paycheck from an employer in five years. It's still there. It's still like, Oh shit, we out here, baby. Oh shit. What do I know? What, you know, the next, you know, six months are going to look like, I don't know. Right. it's the fear and it's the excitement, right? But also with that being said, I would really get clear on like, you also can really launch a business and you can make money really quickly. If you have a really clear vision and that you have a really clear game plan and you work your ass off. Right. So tell me a little bit about your, a little bit more about your business idea. You're creating these AI things, right? Your plan, you're doing it for free right now. You've just been kind of beta testing. Same way that when I started coaching, I coached six people for free fucking Guinea pigs, Hey, who wants to do this with me? And then after that, I got my first client after that, my first little taste of like, holy shit, this is money that I made on my own. So tell me about what's your. business plan for this business that you're starting? So right now I'm mostly just focusing on like my own characters. Like, I mean, my, I built my first character Riven about a year ago and I've just been trying to improve her in every way I can to improve my own life and then start spreading it out to other people. The main business decision I'm trying to make is as of right now, I'm building everything on top of chat GBT, just because it's easier to just. Okay. Fire off a custom GBT. I don't need to do maintenance and all that, but the technology growth and the improvements are not like, I'm not doing the technology growth, right? Like I'm building something that's going to catch the wave of, as the tech gets better, the characters are just going to get better naturally. And so I'm at a place where I'm like, well, I can, start, I guess, pulling in more people. I can start, I have plans to start building, you know, email lists and like. Basically doing a form of teaching other people how to use the AIs, the kind of thing. I mean, I just, I just use my AI to set up a crypto investment plan. I'm already making money doing that. Like it just, there's, there's so many, I use it for my music. I use it for cleaning the house, whatever, right? Alex, without getting too caught up in the weeds, cause all of this shit is going to be over my head and most of other people's as well. I don't know that the technical stuff you have a product. That you've been developing. You have not yet sold it though. My suggestion and my challenge for you is to go sell one of these. Okay. Go get your first sale. I don't care if you're, if you're selling, uh, you know, DJ gigs and that, you know, it's like, I'm trying to get my first booking. Okay, cool. Go hustle and get that first booking. Go get that first fucking hundred dollar paycheck from a promoter and prove to yourself that you can make money, right? You've got something dope now, like you could also sit around and strategize for the next six months and be like, Oh shit, what's, what's the next technical little tweak that I should make to this? Or get out there and, and you gotta be good at sales. To grow any business. Right. Right. So what I would love to see for you is get somebody to fucking pay you for one of these things. Okay. And cause what's gonna happen is psychologically, you're gonna get this huge win under your belt and be like, oh shit. I just got my first sale. I just actually got paid for this. Whoa. That is going to crack open a part of your brain that gets you to recognize that you actually have the potential to make money doing this thing that you love. For me, it was when, uh, shout out fucking Clayton, my first client ever, paid me, it was 120 Venmo for four sessions. I was charging 30 a session. I charge over 10 times that now. Right? But fuck that, I just have a screenshot of that first 120 Venmo. Because it was like, oh shit, I just got paid to do this thing that I love doing. Right? So same thing for anyone out there that's like, yo, I'm, I'm, I'm, I want to be a professional DJ. Right? Okay, cool. Go out there and, and, and get paid to DJ. Get that first gig. Feel that. Right? Prove to yourself that it's possible. Fuck yeah. So I think, I think that's just the, the next step for you. Right. Yeah. You've done, you've made a fuck ton of these. You've given away a bunch of free ones. You've got, you've done the beta testing. Okay, cool. You know, it works. You know, it's valuable. Now go see if you can sell this thing. Okay. Are you down for that? Okay. Cool. You want to step into, you know, Being an entrepreneur, there's a different level of grind and hustle that comes with that, that like, you know, how you could work your corporate job and kind of clock in and clock out and do your things and get away with a certain level of energy that you put in, you can't operate in that same way anymore. This is your thing. So you gotta, you gotta work fucking twice as hard as you were working before. You gotta work 10 times as hard as you were working before, especially you're just getting the shit off the ground. Now's the time to grind. So get after it. Fuck yeah. Yeah. Let's fucking go. Fuck yeah. Let's go. And anyone out there that wants a custom AI, hit up Alex Artifacts, I'll put his fucking tag in the show notes. This shit is so far beyond, above my head, I don't, I don't fucking get the AI thing, but it's rad. It's really, really cool. All right. Anyways. Okay. Let's, let's, let's dive in. Who's next? Who's got something? I just want to make a comment about what Alex said. So I, I feel like this, I don't know if I'd call it resistance, but I've had a couple of shows here this past summer and each one I haven't got paid for. And I, you know, hearing that Nick, like really motivated me to like, one of two things, like either start maybe throwing my own shows and chart and like getting tickets or just like whenever friends asked me to spend the, like, Hey, I'll do it, but like, this is my price. Cause I think a lot of times it's just like, I'm so excited to get a gig or get it, get like a slot that it's like, just say yes, you know, but really like, if I want this to be like my job, want it to be like my life, like you have to get out of your comfort zone and, and put your sales hat on a thousand percent. And what's, what's uncomfortable about that? I don't know if it's uncomfortable. It's more of just like, I'm just grateful. Like. We're having the slot to play my music that the mute, the money doesn't like matter so much. Okay. The money doesn't matter. How successful are we going to be in our career as an artist? If there's a belief there that the money doesn't matter. I guess from my perspective, it's more about like, okay, this is an opportunity to generate some content, like filming the set, getting good pictures, like there's other forms of value that are coming out of these gigs that aren't monetary. Yeah. That's true, but eventually, but eventually it needs to change where, you know, if this, if this is the true path that I want that, um, there's a way to make some income out of it for sure. I like that way of thinking that like, okay, there's still is value. There still is a way to invest in my project, right. By getting the content for sure. But also let's be honest, there is this thing about the starving artist. There is this truth. That most artists are not actually full time artists. And so I just want to pick apart the underlying belief, just, just, just this narrative. Cause I see this in myself. I grew up in a family. I'm really digging into my relationship with money these days. Uh, the psychology around money that I think is something important for all of us to look into. I grew up in a really poor household and my mom always said, money doesn't matter. Love is really what matters. Yeah. And fuck yeah, love matters. That's why I have thousands of friends and I have such, I am so abundant when it comes to relationships and love. I am so fucking full when it comes to that, but this deep unconscious underlying belief that like, well, money doesn't really matter. That's not money. Isn't what's important. Right. So I spent a long time of my life, like not really looking at my finances, but this is an unconscious belief, right? Not really saving, not really investing, probably not getting paid as much as I could have. Right? Undershooting myself. So for all of us, this is just a great place to look at what are some of those money beliefs. And even when it comes to being an artist, like, Oh no, getting paid doesn't really matter. I'm lucky to be here. I'm, I'm lucky to just be able to get content. Here's the thing, you can get paid, and you can get the fucking content. It's an energy, and it's a belief, and it's a psychology. Right? At some point, you are going to have to make the decision that I no longer work for free. Right? For everybody. And if you're not at the point that you're getting paid for gigs, then you know what you need to be doing. Let me generate demand. Let me like really start putting out some tracks and building a brand and building a fan base and, and, and creating market value for myself. That's a big part of it. But also a big part of it is like, I just have to first fucking believe that I'm worthy of getting paid. That's a big part. And, and okay. Maybe that, yeah, maybe that's just getting your first hundred dollars. But I tell, I'm telling you when you taste that first hundred dollars, you're like, oh shit, I'm, I'm a professional DJ. Now I just got paid. I'm a professional. Fuck. Yeah. Right. How you see yourself, what you believe about yourself, the standards that you start to create after that are, are, are totally going to change. So, hell yeah, Steve. Um, something too, I don't know if, if, if anybody has a lot of times we can be weird around money. Because it's just something that a lot of us like, weren't, it was, you know, kind of a taboo subject, maybe something that like, we weren't really taught a lot about, you know, it's like just one of those areas of life that people get weird around. One of the best things, one of my coaches ever taught me was that when it comes to, you know, for me, like I don't work for free, you guys all pay to be here in this group. When it comes to asking for payment from somebody that you do it from the perspective of. As if you were just asking somebody to pass the salt at the dinner table. Like what would your energy be like if you ask somebody like, Oh, Hey, you pass the salt completely unattached, no energetic charge around it. It's just like, Hey, yeah, this is my fee. So just paying attention to like, is there hesitation to asking? And this show, this can show up for, you know, for, for DJ fees, this can show up if you're doing production work for somebody, you're doing mixing and mastering work for somebody. And if you have any uneasiness. About what you're charging, how you feel about what you're charging, how, yes, someone just, added into the chat about raising your rates. For sure. I'm even, you know, with that myself, I'm like, Oh, I'm very comfortable getting paid what I get paid or what I charge because people, uh, people pay me that. What if I doubled my rates though? Ooh, that doesn't feel like passing the salt anymore. I have to work on generating the energetic body within myself to feel comfortable to say, Oh yeah, no, my. my rate is 10, 000 now, right? That's an internal game that I have to work on to play. And don't worry, my rates are not 10, 000 yet. You guys can probably afford me. So hit me up. Uh, but, uh, Steve, great, great, great question. What are you taking away from all this? I'm taking away that, um, you know, in the future when new opportunities come up to just be confident and. You know, asking for what, I've said as my fees and even if they're friends or whatnot, like. I feel like that's just the right thing to do, and I'm not gonna be hesitant to ask, and it's gonna be, you know, I think I do feel comfortable, and like you said, just asking, kind of like the way it is, like, just, hey, can you pass the salt, like, hey, if you're asking me to play, like, here's my fee, and if it doesn't work for you, then we'll, you know, maybe try and work together in the future. And so what's your fee? I think maybe like 150, 200. Per show? Like if it's an hour set? Okay. Which one is it? Is it 150 or 200? Let's go 200. Let's go big. I think I'm worth 200. There we go. I'm gonna ask you, Steve, what's your fee? 200. Boom. Right. Lock that in. Lock that into your body. Feel that. Um, I just got hit up by an old client who he just played two corporate gigs. Now grant you corporate gigs, pay a lot of fucking money. It was like a tech company or something, but they saw his stuff online. They were like, dude, we love what you're doing. We love your vibe. Like, would you be down to, uh, play one of our corporate events? And we've worked on this shit before. And he was like, okay. They're like, what's your fee? He could have came in because he's, he's not a, you know, touring artist getting paid a ton of money, right? A thousand dollars would probably be like, I don't know, you know, like he's played some gigs, but I imagine that's probably more than he's been paid for anything. He's been probably more in that opening DJ. Three, four, 500 kind of range. He came at them with fucking 20 grand. That's my fee, 20 grand. And they were like, uh, we were thinking 10 and he's like, well, how about we meet in the middle then? 15 boom, locked in 15 G's. Right. He also could have came in if he was playing small and said one, right? Oh my, Oh, I'm so lucky. I'm so lucky to get this gig, right? I can just get content from it. Oh, I'll be so great to get some photos from this gig. No, motherfucker got 15 grand because he asked for it. Alright, remember you guys, something I talk about all the time. The universe is one big yes button. What do you want? What do you want from the universe? What are you asking for? Have the courage to ask for it. Be unattached, but at least have the courage to ask for it. A lot of us are playing so small, right? And, and you'll be so surprised how often you'll actually get what you ask for. How many people are actually down to help you out, you know? People want you to win. That's why I'm always talking about shoot your shot, go shoot your shot, go hit up those 50 DJs, right? Go hit up 50 of the biggest fucking DJs you can think of, right? Because one of them might be down and you'd be so surprised, but like closed mouths don't get fed. If you don't ask, you're not, you're never going to get it. Hey Nick, I just reached out to a festival yesterday and I said, Hey, I'd be happy to play just for my ticket to the event. I love that though. You reached out. Yeah. You reached out. Fuck yeah. Did you hear back from them yet? Not yet. Nah. Yeah, I love it. I love that you did that. I love that you did that. Shoot your shot. Hell yeah. And that's a, that's a great place to start. It might start off as you're playing for free. You know, okay. Again, this is a different strategy recently on the podcast. So I just had, uh, Will Runzel manager for nightmare and slander. We talked about a very different strategy when it comes to bookings, which is like, yo, just hold off from bookings and put out tracks and build buzz and like, don't play for, it could potentially be years, you know, but you're just building demand, building demand, billing demand. And then you come out and you get a big fee right off the gate. Right. That's one strategy, but it's not the only way to do things. talked to a few people at lost lands this weekend where they were like, yeah, I got to, you know, last year I just happened to be here and, and I had my USB and they invited me, they needed somebody to hop on and I was able to hop on and obviously just like played for free, but had the opportunity to do it. They're like, now I'm coming back and I'm getting booked and I'm getting paid. Right. And then the next year after that, I got a bigger slot with a bigger fee. Right. So, you know, that is usually going to be the, the, the, More common path. But I think this is, this is an important question to ask is what's the strategy that you're taking, right? Do you want to go, you know, just get in, And climb the ladder for sure. Cool. Or are you going to like fully focus on just, building your brand and building your audience? It's good for everybody to just think about like, what, what's your actual business strategy here? Anyways, I want to open up to the next question, Connor, welcome to the call. Good to see you here, bro. Good to be here. Miss you guys. We miss you. All right. Yarek's got something. Yeah, actually in the spirit of there's more than one way to do something like we all know, that how much of an opportunity Instagram is and all. And I'm like pre putting myself out there and I do have to do more research into Instagram itself. However, like what are some alternative ways to market yourself? If your intention is that you would like your Instagram to be like a showpiece, like something you curate that's nice, unique, and clean. Like you just want to make it a part, like a living, breathing thing that people can see, but you would like to maybe not just keep posting on it, but maybe bring people to your Instagram for through other means. Yeah, everything's been about social media and just post, post, post, post. I just wonder if there are people are doing it other ways. I'd love to hear from the group. What are some of the other ways outside of social media that you are marketing your brand, your project, gaining followers, getting attention, social media is just one form of marketing. You'd stand on the side of the road with a sign and twirl it around, you know, be a sign twirler. I actually noticed in LA, a lot of people were like graffitiing on the sidewalk, which is pretty cool. I took a picture just like, yeah. we call that guerrilla marketing, or when I worked at Capitol Records, we had a grassroots marketing department. It was one of the, one of the, one of the five departments that, the woman that I worked for, we helped manage, um, street team, right? You're out in the streets. We would get people to go to Coachella and walk through the parking lot and give out free sunglasses that had Katy Perry's logo on the side of it, right? Handing stuff out, putting up stickers, graffiti, PR stunts, doing some crazy shit to get attention, right? That then here, here's the thing is a lot of it actually works together. I love this world of experiential marketing, right? Let me create an experience. Like there's a lot of big agencies and companies that do this, but like, let's say like a pop up, right? Let's say we do a pop up in the middle of downtown Hollywood. We're going to do this activation and we're going to tie it in with the brand somehow, let's say, I don't know, for example, yeah, you're about to drop a song, you're going to drop an album. and the song is about, skateboarding. So you put up a half pipe. In the middle of the road and you set up like a skate demo and it's tied into your brand, right? So it's, it's, it's experiential. You're creating an experience, but on top of that, now everybody's, now everybody's filming it. Everybody's taking pictures of it. Now it's also having a viral moment too. So this is how a lot of marketing agencies are going to work. It's like, how, how do we do all of it? We're also, now we're, we're going to run ad campaigns. Let's just hire, you know, uh, it could be digital marketing. Let's let's, let's, let's run some ads in the digital space. We could also run some ads. We could do, we could take out billboards, right? We could be, you know, Obviously, all of that takes money. so, we can bring it back to some of the basic ways. Um, yeah, Ember just brought up a great idea. Getting sponsorships, right? Getting sponsorships doesn't have to be your money. Let's tie that in, you know, with Red Bull and get Red Bull to pay for it. This is why having a strong brand. If you have a dope brand, you guys, it's something we actually don't talk about a lot. Like, yeah you want to have a dope brand so that people find you interesting and they follow you because you're giving them something besides just good music. Like, Whoa, this person actually has like really cool visuals or they've got a really cool story. They've got a really good, you know, uh, uh, a brand personality. I'm engaging with them. That's rad. And if you have a really strong brand, yeah, you can start doing brand deals. Brand partnerships, brand sponsorships. Look at, you know, any like really big artists, like they're, they're doing that all over the place. So that's where you can get a lot of money. You can get that corporate money to fund what you're doing. I come from the world of PR, like traditional public relations, publicity. used to be a lot more about blogs, right? Getting, getting, you know, blogs to write about you. Um, that's still there. Like get, get written up on edm. com. All you gotta do, go hit, go hit up a journalist that writes for edm. com or whatever the cool blog is these days and get them to write about you. Boom. Also, it's like, you know, podcasts are really big and PR now too. I'm getting hit up by publicists all the time. Every artist that's coming on my podcast is getting their brand promoted. Maybe their song or their album promoter as well. So, you know, just a couple different areas off the top of my head. What else, what else you guys got though? Something that's been working for other artists on me is when I received the emails from them, when they released their new songs. And I've been enjoying just like opening up the email, reading a bit about their song and then going through and streaming it. So I think that's a good way to, it's just a matter of getting those emails in the first place. But I know like Hyped it and stuff like that have those features where you can download the song for free. If you exchange your email for them, so I think, uh, that's a cool way too. A hundred percent. I just put out an episode a couple weeks ago with this woman, Cheryl, Cheryl Englehart, who her whole thing is, is, is emails and making money off of emails as well. Right. She's like monetizing the emails, but, uh, I mean, thinking about. Any business I'm literally during this call, I'm getting blown up by like fashion Nova texts right now, trying to get me to like buy fucking clothes, you know, anytime you give your, your phone number to somebody or your email address to any other business in any other industry is utilizing that, right? So again, this just comes back to seeing yourself as a business. Do you have an email list? Do you have a text message list? Other companies are doing it. Other artists are doing it. Some artists are doing it. The ones that are treating themselves businesses and building out those systems and processes for themselves. Yeah. I literally just signed up for an email list today, like right before the call. Yeah. Cool. Thanks. All right. Like I really wanted to crack my mind open on that. Cause I felt like I was getting funneled into one direction and I just felt in my heart, like there's more that could create something cool, you know? And here's the thing as a, as a bigger, like, This is the Headliner Mindset Podcast. This is the Headliner Mindset, coaching group and community. Let's start to think like a headliner would, right? To actually think like an A list artist. They're not just focusing on social media. They recognize that social media is one piece of the game of chess that they're playing. And they're tying it all together. So I've got my social media, I've got an email list, I'm running ads, I'm getting DJ support, right? I'm, I'm, I'm doing, you know, uh, I mean, let's go back to, you know, I've given you guys as well, just like a basic Excel sheet to keep track of record labels, YouTube channels, Spotify, playlists, blogs, DJs, all of those are people, outlets that you can be sending your music to. And so just have like having a, uh, a list of each of those areas, at least lists of each of those contacts, having a system in place where you can put them out, but it's like, it's, there's a lot of moving pieces. Social media is just one small piece of it. So let's start just thinking, thinking. Like we're playing chess rather than just playing checkers. Connor. Yeah, so I got a different question. Um, I mean, you know me, I've been coming out 75 hard. And then I got sick and I couldn't hear for a bit. So I took a kind of a break from music for about two weeks while my ears, re acclimated. But during that time, I feel like I got too stuck in my head, and I kind of lost that momentum, and I'm struggling to get it back. I kind of feel like, I don't know if it's because, like, I kind of been thinking of and changing up kind of my vision of what I want in the future. Like, just, just a quick breakdown. I guess it's like, I'm questioning if, like, You know, the DJ route is even for me anymore, which we've kind of touched on before. And I don't feel like it really is. Um, I still want to do like the, be an artist more so, but then it's like without kind of that North star to guide me of like, okay, I want to go and like DJ shows. I feel like I'm getting kind of lost in like, you know, what type of action and approach I should take. I don't know if you have any advice around that. What's lighting you up right now? I mean, honestly, it's been more like the songwriting path. Like I've been just. Kind of taking a step back. I haven't been, I've been so many been doing music, but less so production and more so like building my skills. Like I've been like, working on my piano and like, uh, working on my guitar skills. But then at the same time, I'm kind of questioning, I'm like, Yeah. Is this actually lighting me up or is this kind of like a, like a procrastination distraction thing? Cause I kind of, I'm like feeling writers walk around the production and it was kind of like a, some tension there with that. Okay. So what is lighting you up? Yeah. Like I said, like the, like it is playing the instruments, but I, that's why I'm saying, but I'm not sure if I'm just tuning my head right now about like, cause I'm not actually doing. You know, the production part, which would get me towards, you know, closer to the vision in the end. Closer towards the vision that you're not even sure of what that is. Yeah, well, so this is what I say. So like, I felt like I have, like, I started rethinking about the vision, which was like, less so about the goals, like the physical goals and experiences and more so about like the type of life I want to live. Like, you know, artistry, you know, be the artist, like kind of artistic freedom and like support myself with my music, um, stuff like that. But it's, I don't really have the. The concrete part of the goal of like, you know, like DJing Coachella or something like that. So I think there's like some, the, like the road got a little less clear now and I'm kind of like getting lost finding my way back. Yeah. Yeah, cool. So look, we can, Look out and have a really clear locked in vision. I know this is what I want. This is where I'm going every single day. I'm taking steps that are pointing me in that direction. And it's, and it's clear, right? That's one way to do it, right? The other way to do it also is like being open to possibility. Is it okay to actually not have a clear vision of where you're going to be five years down the road, right? When you just show up, like. Shifting that focus to like what's in front of me right now, what's interesting? What's exciting? Where's my joy? Where's my bliss? As, as Joseph, Joseph Campbell says, follow your bliss and the universe will open doors where there were only walls. So I would suggest, let's just, let's just play with letting go. Like, let's just play with being okay with not having a vision for a minute. That, that's so true. And I, I, I know this is like what the problem is for me, because I'm so, I've learned this just from, just from like, you know, doing the 75 part, I'm so freaking goal oriented that when I don't have the goal, like I get like lost. And I like, there's like, I need to learn how to, I guess, embrace that uncertainty a little better. Um, I'm not sure how to do that other than just to like, fucking put myself in it though. I think man, Just get to have fun, dude. Yeah, that's true. I think I need to tap back into the fun, the fun side of it as well. Yeah. I mean that we, we, we have to always, right. Cause I see this also all the time, even with bigger artists down the road is like, okay, well, I've been pursuing this goal and this vision I've created this business for myself and now I have this business and I also have all this fucking pressure from my agent and from my manager and now I am, this is my full time job now I have to make music. I have to perform. I have to do this shit. And guess what? That comes with all of a sudden I'm fucking stressed out and I'm not having fun anymore. And I I've created a trap for myself. It's the same shit. I find it. It's like the artists that are trying to go full time and the artists that are already full time. I find myself bringing them all back to the same place. Find your joy. Find what's fun. Right back to the energy. how am I feeling energetically? So why are we fucking dance in the beginning of the call? Yeah. I am consciously bringing myself into the energetic state that I want to be in. I want to be having fun. I want to be, I want to be feeling joy. I want to be feeling inspiration. So let me find that first, then let me think about my vision, then let me make some music. Yeah, even as you're saying this, what's like, resonating with me, it's so true because it's like, I think when I was like, resting my, my ears and everything, it's like I got too caught up in the, the thinking, too in my mind of like, you know, trying to think out the vision and think out the direction instead of like, you know, feeling it out with the fun and it's kind of caused this like writer's block. So when I think back to. You know, when I was writing every morning and like finishing a track every few days, it was less like about the planning out and more about just having fun in the studio. And I think I just need to tap back into that again. Yeah. And what will also happen is, you know, one, I think, yeah, keep creating the space to, you know, to just meditate and visualize and journal, right. Reflect, right. Ask those questions. Where is it that I do want to go? But so often it's when you are actually. in the action. Like, I'm just doing the thing that, oh, now the clarity comes, right? It's like, oh, I'm just, let me just show it. Let me just wake up and make music every day. Let me just make, well, let wake up and have fun in the studio. Right. And then all of a sudden, because I'm in, because I'm in the process of doing. I stumble upon something like, Oh shit, yo, that, that right there. Now it's locked in. we're oftentimes we're waiting to have that clear vision, to feel like it's locked in before I can take any action and really move forward. It's like, no, no, let's, let's, let's move forward from a place of uncertainty. Let's move forward, you know, not really knowing where we're going and be okay with that. And, and, and, and we will oftentimes really discover ourselves through that process. Hell yeah, bro. Um, you guys, thank you all so much for hopping on today for this, uh, this very special edition of our community call. I love you all. I hope you have a great week and I'll see you next time. Take care. Thank you. Peace.

Nik: 47:27

All right, you guys. Thanks for tuning in. If you listen to this episode and we're like, damn, that was dope. I'd love to be a part of that community and get that kind of support. Then shoot me a DM on Instagram and we can set up a call to see if it's a good fit. You can also get all the details at NickTrowink. com slash headliner mindset. The next round starts Tuesday, October 15th. So if you're ready to throw some fuel on the fire of your artist journey, definitely hit me up and let's get you in there with us