Ep 42: Proverbs and Half-Truths

In this episode, John challenges some of the most popular pieces of conventional wisdom. Inspirational sayings can encourage us, but they can also oversimplify life and business. 

For working musicians, a catchy phrase isn't always good advice. John explores why proverbs are often true much of the time, but almost never all of the time, and why every musician should think twice before building a career around a bumper sticker philosophy.

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You are listening to the Gig to Live Podcast. Welcome everyone. I'm John Foles and I'm a full-time working musician. This podcast is about building a music life that holds up over time. It's practical, enjoyable, sometimes uncomfortable, but it's always about helping you stay in the game and actually enjoy the life that you're building. We'll meet some wonderful working musicians from time to time. So whether you're just getting started or you've been doing this for years, you're in the right spot. This podcast is for you. Hey everyone, welcome to the show today. If I have a little gravel in my voice, it's A, because it's morning for me. B because the last few days, Canadian wildfire smoke has been blowing into Michigan, and the air is disgusting outside. Well, it's getting so much better. But yeah, it's been taking a toll on my voice, which is crazy. I'm glad that I have uh over the last couple days, I've had a couple days off uh to rest my voice, which is good because uh the shows are gonna crank up here uh tomorrow. So I'm excited to be with you today. Today we're gonna talk about proverbs and half-truths. Years ago, I sold life insurance. I know, I know, I can't believe it either. But I did. It was actually a great time in my life. I learned a lot then. Uh, and I totally got wrapped up in every single self-help book and business book that there was out there at the time. I I read them all, all of the big ones for sure. I read some of them multiple times. I went to conferences, you know, that were designed to kind of, you know, get your heart racing and get you out there and make the sales. I listened to the um cassette tapes from all the pros. I listened to what they had to say about business and how to succeed. I was I was all in. And some of that stuff is fun. Those pithy grabbers and that bumper sticker wisdom get you thinking at times. And those concise little proverbs are sometimes exactly what I needed for inspiration. Some of them were super cheesy, but at the time that's exactly what I needed. Which uh reminds me of one of those proverbs right now. It just popped into my mind, Thomas Edison's definition of genius, where he said it's 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration. Oh man, I loved that one. It's fun to think about, but you know what? It's not always true. I mean, uh, some people that I know, uh, they just they make it wealthy or they become very successful at what they do. Uh, and it seems like a fluke. Like uh, you know, a box of goodies just dropped from the sky on them. They found their gold at the end of the rainbow by stumbling over some rock. Uh some guys have a stroke of genius while smoking weed one day, and their daddy loans them a million dollars so they can earn their next 10 million. Some people accidentally stumble upon something and find themselves in a Beverly Hillbilly situation. And if if you don't know that reference, then please look it up. Uh proverbs are just that. They are proverbial. Things that are true of life much of the time, but not all of the time. Proverbs are not universal truths. And the same goes for all the little business sayings. The only place success comes before work is in the dictionary. That's one of them. Really? I mean, tell that to my friend who's a millionaire because he inherited his dad's almond farm that makes gazillions, and my friend just pays people to run it while he sits back and collects the check. In the insurance business, and now in my music business, I hear this kind of wisdom all the time. And I don't dismiss it right away, but I certainly don't swallow it up like I did when I was a highly impressionable salesperson at 19 years old or 20 or 21. That's when I was doing life insurance. I thought today it would be good to look at some of those popular sentiments that musicians may hear along the way. And, you know, let's have some fun poking holes in them. There's so many. It's hard to know where to start, but I did put together a top ten for you today. So drum roll, please. The top ten wisdom sayings that aren't necessarily true. Number 10. If it feels like work, you've lost your passion. I've heard other versions of this one as well, but and the basic sentiment is that you should always love what you do, or it may be the wrong fit. I think it's simply untrue. Or it's only partially true. Because the moment that we turn something that we love into a profession, which is a great idea, in many cases, uh, it becomes work, though. As soon as it's a profession, it becomes work. It doesn't nullify the passion automatically, but it does become work. And for the person who plays music and tells me, uh, I don't work, I get to play music, that's not work, I can tell you that one of a few things are going on. Either they haven't been doing it for very long, or they don't do it very often, or they don't need to make it happen to pay the bills. There are invoices to send and gear to load, venues and customers to serve and problems to solve, and days when you would rather stay home. But none of that means that you've lost your passion. It means you've become a professional. Passion can't be measured by whether every moment is enjoyable, right? Uh, because joy, that in-the-moment happiness kind of thing is is fleeting. Uh so passion, you can't measure passion by am I feeling uh joy in this exact moment? Uh or am I loving what I'm doing at this exact moment? I think that passion is more measured by whether you still believe the work is worth doing, even when parts of it aren't. And some parts, let's be honest, some parts of music can really suck. So, dear musician, you don't always have to wake up singing happy, happy, joy, joy. You can have bad days, you can go through long seasons of musical despair. It happens. If you're there, don't believe that it means that you lost your passion. Don't let anybody tell you that. Something may need to change in the way that you're doing things, maybe, but but that's different. And changing something is is less damning than believe believing, oh my goodness, that you've somehow lost your passion. I get passionate about this. I need a sip of coffee. Oh, that's good stuff. Okay. Number nine. Uh you have to say yes before you can afford to say no. Um, no, you don't. I know where this thing comes from, and it's not all bad, because early in your career, especially, people say to take opportunities, take every opportunity that comes along, build experience, build relationships, build a reputation be before you become super selective. Well, sometimes yes, but it it can't be a rule. It doesn't necessarily get easier to set boundaries to people and say no to people when you get more successful in your music career. Right? So for some, saying yes to everything becomes a dangerous habit that's hard to break. And the other thing to be cautious of is that there are opportunities that can genuinely hurt your business or even hurt you, you know, hurt your soul. So, yeah, maybe you give yourself permission to take something on for the experience to be able to leverage that experience towards bigger things. Maybe. But this is not a rule, so don't buy into it, hook, line, and sinker. All right. Number eight. Oh, you should never let them see you struggle. I actually bought into this one for a bit, but I I don't like it for so many reasons. When my son was a little boy, he was a fan of saying, uh, I can do it all by myself. And I see this in my grandkids right now, too. Uh uh a lot of kids uh have this feeling, right? Because they're growing up and they're gaining independence. The truth is, it's great to teach our kids to be independent and and maybe fake it till they make it, but it's also good to teach them to ask for help. As adults, if we are always faking it till we make it, we're never letting anybody see us struggle. If we hide our struggles, it can be very easy for us to never ask for help and maybe to even feel ashamed when we do ask for help, like we're something lesser than. And that's really sad to me. It can also lead to burnout, you know, thinking that we have to bear every burden on our own. So sure, be wise, don't be a whiner, don't complain about everything, but people actually respect business people who ask for help and are committed to making things right, committed to fixes. So it's okay to let people see you struggle. Number seven, every criticism deserves your attention. Oh man. In the words of my dad as I was growing up, horseshit. I grew up and existed in a culture where this was very prevalent. A culture where every voice was allowed to speak at the same volume and everyone was allowed to speak their piece, uh, which reminds me, I have a funny memory I'll share with you. I was in a meeting where I worked with another artist on a piece of art that was being used for promotional purposes. And to be clear, my department that I was in charge of at that time, it was in charge of promotion, art, and protecting the brand of the company. I I didn't have to run anything by anyone because the buck stopped with my department at that time. People ran art through me, and that's that's just the way it was. That's the job I was hired to do. But another department that had nothing to do with my department complained about the art when we were having a company meeting and everybody was in the room. Everyone. And I told him it was okay. He didn't have to like it. I understood that we all have different tastes. But this guy kept pushing. And he said to me, So so what does that mean? Is it settled? Yes, I I told him. Oh, so we're not even gonna talk about it, he said. And I told him no. And he got even more snarky and said, shouldn't everyone have an opinion here? I I chuckled inside, I don't know, maybe outside too. I told him everyone does have an opinion, actually, but I didn't ask his opinion. I probably uh shouldn't have said that in retrospect. And somebody came to his defense right away. Oh, are you saying his opinion doesn't count? And I thought about it for a second, and I calmly asked him, Are you an artist? And he said, No. Are you interested in being part of the design team? And he said no. No. Uh does this promotion affect your department in any way? And he said no. So I breathed deep and I said, your opinion does count, but it doesn't count on this project. And half of the room turned against me. They couldn't believe I said it. They they said I was insulting, I was rude, I wasn't being inclusive. But you know what? To this day I stand by what I said. Musicians, not every criticism deserves your attention. Not every opinion matters. Because not all opinions are informed opinions. Expertise matters, experience matters, and some opinions are rooted in people's fear and their jealousy and petty dislikes or prejudice or misunderstandings sometimes. And by the way, this guy hated me, so we already went into that meeting, you know, with the cards stacked against me. Uh too many voices clutter up the soundscape. And if you try to satisfy everyone, you will end up making decisions that no one loves, including yourself. If there is a market for what you do, and you love doing that thing in that way, then those voices who love what you do, they count. The people who are close to you that you have invited into your life, those those voices count. But some opinions deserve to be ignored completely. Anonymous critics or the people that habitually complain, internet trolls, uh people who have never supported your work and have the loud voices, or they're always, you know, offering the least useful advice. You don't need to listen to them. Uh please don't. Man, I I get so worked up about this one. I I better move on because I might bust a blood vessel. So no, uh, every criticism does not deserve your attention. Number six. You only get one chance to make a first impression. I mean, I get it. Kind of true sometimes, but consistency is what matters more in your business. The first impression uh can be affected by so many things. It would be tough for you to have to live with the feeling that everything you do has to be perfect the first time, uh, or you mess it all up. You know, maybe we go into a gig and we're sick, we're just not feeling well, or maybe we're sad, or our equipment isn't working properly, or the venue is super hot inside, or smoke is filling the air, or the people watching you are having a bad night. Honestly, first impressions matter, but building an impression over many experiences that that matters way more. First impressions certainly don't define us. Think about every musician that we have heard about that got rejected by a label or a venue, and and somehow they they made it big. So many stories, right? How many of you heard where the label says, oh, I passed on so-and-so, and I wish I hadn't? That story happens all the time. So look at it differently. How about start strong as often as we can? Or when we have a chance to make a first impression, give it our best. Okay. Number five. Charge what you're worth. Not really, or kinda. It's more than that. It's more complicated. Certainly, don't charge less than we're worth. Don't charge less than the market is willing to pay. But the market doesn't really pay based on our worth. It pays us based on the value that people perceive, perceived value. It pays us on the alternatives that are available, the demand, the role that we play, the importance of the event that we're asked to play, and what problem that we are asked to solve for the market. We see this all the time in the trades, right? I used to work the trades. And a plumber may charge you 200 bucks to show up and do a fix that you schedule a few weeks in advance. But if you call them on a Sunday or a holiday, then it's 400. And I don't know if those figures are right, but you know, it's it's double when there's an emergency. It's because uh it they're paying for what happened in the market. The market changed, the situation changed. It's not because they're getting paid for what they're worth. Not really. Doctors charge more for certain procedures that take the exact same amount of time. Mechanics do too. It's the same thing for us as musicians. So you want to hire me to play for your wedding? Great, I'm excited about that. You want me to write a special song for your wedding? Well, that song is going to cost just as much as I am charging you for the three-hour reception that you're asking me to play. Why? Because that thing is valuable. Now, if we think that we're worth more than the market allows, then we have some choices. We either give up and give in, or we find a new market to play in, or we find ways to increase the perceived value of what we offer. I guess what I really want to debunk about that myth is that you can't put a value on someone's worth or someone's personhood, so it's a bit of misinformation. But I get it. I know where it comes from. Okay. Number four, hard work always pays off. No, it doesn't. Hard work on the wrong things uh sometimes make us exhausted. Hard work on the right things sometimes go unnoticed. Sometimes hard work teaches us that this thing is not worth it. Uh sometimes hard work teaches us this is not what we expected. Sometimes hard work doesn't pay off because the market isn't right or something is preventing us from winning. Like, I don't know, uh a worldwide pandemic. Some diehards will say that hard work was worth it because we always learn something no matter what. And I'm I'm calling BS on that. Why do some people always want to try and spin horrible things into something positive? Uh I you know what? As I say that, I I do that sometimes, you know, because. You know, we don't want to be Debbie Downers all the time, but sometimes things don't work. Now, if there is something to learn, then I want to pay attention. But sometimes there's nothing to learn. I'm still going to bet on hard work. I still believe in it. But I don't want to buy into the fairy tale that hard work always produces results. Number three, trust your gut. I'm a huge fan of intuition, actually. And outside of the you know, magical mother's intuition kind of thing, or that twin tuition stuff, which is scary, where the twin knows something is wrong with the other twin. Outside of that stuff, intuition can look a lot like wisdom. Our life experiences, our history, uh things we've experienced that have gone sideways, having a teachable spirit, learning lessons from others, all of that stuff plays into intuition. And I'm more of a fan of intuition than not. But sometimes sometimes our gut is anxiety. Sometimes our gut is fear. Sometimes our gut is ego. No, sometimes our gut is wisdom. But learning the difference between all of those things is maturity. Number two. Oh my goodness, I heard this so many times. I think it's one of the worst. Maybe, maybe even worse is uh winners never quit, quitters never win. Dear Lord. The truth is, the ones who never quit often develop hypertension and drop dead. The ones who never quit often alienate their friends and families, the ones who never quit sometimes do massive damage to their mental health. The ones who never quit develop bad habits and have no boundaries. The ones who never quit often get taken advantage of. Sometimes quitting is exactly the right move. Quit the bad clients. Quit the bad venues, quit bad habits, quit toxic partnerships and relationships, quit ideas that aren't working. So yeah, persistence may be a virtue, but you know what else is? Discernment. Number one, work smarter, not harder. This phrase sometimes I think becomes an excuse. People use it to justify shortcuts, avoiding difficult work, or some people believing there's a hack for everything. But we know there are no shortcuts to becoming a great musician. Hard work. Building trust, hard work. Learning our instruments, hard work. Working on our vocal tone, developing a style, hard work. Writing great songs, hard work. Developing a reputation, hard work. Some things require long hours and consistency and sweat equity. Work smarter, not harder, only makes sense when there's a much easier way to do the thing that we're doing and the end result is the same. So when I was a teenager, for instance, I stacked boxes of tile in a warehouse for a summer. It would have been dumb of me to lift all of these boxes, which were very heavy, over my head by hand when there was a forklift sitting right there. So I needed to use the forklift. I needed to work smarter in that case. Honestly, the life of a musician needs a little of both. We need smart work and we need hard work. I think proverbial sayings can be helpful, but musicians that build something that lasts have principles that we live by that supersede the traditional proverbial bumper sticker wisdom, t-shirt wisdom kinds of sayings. You know, we lean into wisdom, we read the signs, we pay attention to the market, we break our own rules when it's necessary. We put human beings first. All of that stuff matters. So if you walk into somewhere and there's a poster and it looks really inspirational, or perhaps there's a kitten hanging from a tree and there's a proverbial saying underneath it about how you should run your business, all I'm saying is, friends, I mean, we should think twice about that stuff. I love y'all. Thanks for listening. Before I sign off today, can I ask you guys to do me a huge favor? If you haven't subscribed to this podcast already, would you please do that? Uh, if you haven't given it a good rating on whatever platform you listen to it on, could you please do that? That it'd be really, really helpful. And I know it seems like every podcast we listen to is asking us to do this kind of thing, but it's it's for a reason. It's because it really helps. And I appreciate you listening, I appreciate you sharing this with your friends. It really has been, continues to be a fun journey to do this kind of thing. As always, if you have some ideas for this podcast, I would love to hear from you. Just send me an email, gig to live podcast at gmail.com. Or if you just want to introduce yourself and say hello, that would be great. If you think you'd be a great interview maybe for this podcast, let me know if you have anything you want to communicate, gig to live podcast at gmail dot com. And until the next time, stay creative. Stay after it. Stay hired.