Episode #138 – Why Working HARD Doesn’t Always Work

How to Put Your Hard Work to Use!

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I want to dispel a myth today and maybe give you some motivation to keep on moving on if you are feeling a bit worn down.

Maybe you have been working really really hard and you feel like it is not paying off and you’re wondering why? What else can I possibly do to make things happen?

This can be incredibly frustrating and deflating is the word that I hear a lot when it comes to effort not equalling outcome.

If you’re anything like me you grew up with and eventually adopted a work hard mentality in life. I know a lot of you have this trait and maybe belief that THE thing that will get you where you want to go is hard work. 

And perhaps you have experience many times in life the outcome of hard work being results. I know I certainly did especially as a child, teenager and young adult. I worked incredibly hard to put myself through school and then university and then working a professional corporate job. It was really all about work.

And then I started working on music full-time and I adopted that very same mentality. I played every night in pubs, I barely slept, I worked hard and I will say that what working hard did was it made me a lot better. And it got me paid reasonably well, making a living for sure, not an elaborate one but a living none the less. And it even got me street cred I guess as someone who could take it, work hard, get up day after day and do it again. 

And at that time I think I thought, if I keep doing this, something is going to happen all this hard work is going to pay off in bigger ways.

And what I didn’t see at the time is that the pay off was that I was getting really good at what I did.

But I now understand thoroughly what that process is and how we accidentally and erroneously believe that it is the hard work that brings us the golden goods, the big opportunities.

So let me be super clear the hard work makes you great at what you do, whatever you’re working hard at you’re gonna get great at it because you are working hard.

It is the other things that you neglect and forget that will bring you the golden goods and once they come you will be ready, because you have written lots of great songs, you have performed a lot of shows, you have developed your playing skills, your stage skills, your chops!

So what is that other stuff that you may be neglecting….

#1 – Real Industry Connections – If you are working so hard that you are forgetting to make new connections and keep your current connections strong. If you haven’t listened to my podcast I did with Brent Baxter – hit songwriter – he has his own podcast called “the CLIMB” highly recommend listening to it. He talked about his process for this, he does a thing where we tries to do what he calls “touches” – I think he does 10 touches a day. That means that he reaches out to current contacts, friends to see how they are doing what they are working on, just say hi, etc, and he also reaches out to new contacts to deepen his connection with them. Such a great system I don’t ever make 10 touches but I”m trying to make 3 and even that is opening doors and relationships that weren’t nearly as connected before.

#2 – Real Fan Connections – If you are forgetting that the FANS are the most important people of all you may be in the trenches working hard and forgetting to nurture these connections.

#3 – Your Numbers – are your projects doing well, do you understand the numbers, do you truly understand and own your income and expenses. Are you planning based on your past knowledge of these numbers.

To summarize: 

Working Hard Makes You Great at what you do

Making Connections Creates Opportunities for you to do what you do

So when you do make those connections you will ready and armed with great skills to make the most of those opportunities.

If you are currently feeling like your hard work hasn’t or isn’t paying off, then I hope this clarifies those thoughts for you and helps motivate you to keep moving forward maybe adding some of those actions of creating connections and understanding your business at a deeper level with your numbers, and owning that data.

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