It's a People Problem

"Dealing with people is probably the biggest problem you face, especially if you're in business." 

-Dale Carnegie

There are far more great players today than there are paying jobs.  The ability to successfully navigate the business side of music has never been more important.  And by far the most difficult aspect of that is dealing with people.

Your reputation, both your musical one and your professional one, always precedes you.  Those who are kind, even to those who sometimes make that difficult, tend to get called a lot.  Sure, some people who are rarely kind get work, but they do so in spite of that fact.

With the current level of competition for even just quality freelance gigs, you don't want to be giving anyone a reason to not hire you, especially after putting in thousands of hours of work on the horn.

Making Your Own Opportunities

"The man who grasps an opportunity as it is paraded before him, nine times out of ten makes a success; but the man who makes his own opportunities is, barring an accident, a sure-fire success!" -Dale Carnegie

These words were uttered many decades ago and had nothing to do with the music business but could not be more true today.  Most music schools are churning out graduates without teaching them how to make their own opportunities in the music business.  And if you take a look around, the vast majority of people "making it" in the music business these days are the ones that are doing just that.

What have you done today in an attempt to create an opportunity for yourself?