Serial entrepreneur and fellow New Yorker Chris Dixon wrote about an interesting facet of being an entrepreneur in his post “Otherwise Do Something Else”. As always it’s quite easy to translate lessons from the world of entrepreneurs to the realm of the artist.
“I remember back when I started my first company, a friend said to me “get ready to have a knot in your stomach and feel nauseous for years.” I laughed it off then, but it was probably the most accurate advice I’ve ever gotten. [...]
In 1995, I was a graduate student studying philosophy at Columbia. [...] I happened to get to have dinner with the philosopher Daniel Dannett, and I asked him what he thought I should do with my career. He said: “If there is absolutely no way you can imagine being happy except studying philosophy, study philosophy. Otherwise do something else.”
Being an artist is incredibly hard. Not only do you have to create something meaningful out of thin air, you then also have to convince other people to join your team to get that work out there into the world to as many people as possible. Then together you have to convince enough people to give you money in exchange for the work, or for something that’s related to the work (merch, services) for you and your team to survive on. On top of that you’re now also a traveling saleswoman or man that has to go from town to town to make people aware of the latest that you’ve created. Maybe not what you thought you signed up for when you started playing guitar and writing songs in your room at age 14!
The other side of the coint is that the benefits you may reap can be incredible. The amount of lives you may touch, the people you might help, the new friends you might make, and even the decent to great living you could make. The work itself is hard and the road is long, so you better make sure you love it enough.
There is of course an alternative, the “do something else” part of the story. There are lots of other jobs you might enjoy that you could do while making music on the side, as a hobby. Nothing wrong with that, unless of course “there is absolutely no way you can imagine being happy except…” by creative and performing music full time. If that is the case you have your work cut out for you, but at least you know where you stand and you can give it your all.
Related Reading:
- How Badly Do You Want It? (Or What Will It Take) (read)