Want to understand the mysterious forces that fuel your motivation? Maddy and I, harness our contrasting work mentalities – her strategic, date-organized style and my ideas-driven approach – to dissect the multifaceted beast that is motivation.
Together, exploring how stress and fear of failure taint our motivation. We uncover surprising truths about how fear can warp our decision-making process and how the allure of financial success can sometimes be a motivation killer. But fear not, we also journey into the noble quest of maintaining motivation during the grueling times. We unlock the power of habits to keep us on track and probe into the curious ways our personal hygiene and appearance can affect our motivation.
The motivational terrain is tainted with external influences – the opinions of others, societal systems – and we bravely challenge their sway. We put the popular motivational quotes under scrutiny, questioning their role in our professional lives, and warn against the fleeting nature of motivation that is rooted in comparison or competition. As we close this odyssey, we hand you a valuable treasure – the crucial lesson of rituals and habits as a sustainable source of motivation. So, prepare yourself for an enlightening journey through the dense forests of motivation, and let's conquer this together!
Want to understand the mysterious forces that fuel your motivation? Maddy and I, harness our contrasting work mentalities – her strategic, date-organized style and my ideas-driven approach – to dissect the multifaceted beast that is motivation.
Together, exploring how stress and fear of failure taint our motivation. We uncover surprising truths about how fear can warp our decision-making process and how the allure of financial success can sometimes be a motivation killer. But fear not, we also journey into the noble quest of maintaining motivation during the grueling times. We unlock the power of habits to keep us on track and probe into the curious ways our personal hygiene and appearance can affect our motivation.
The motivational terrain is tainted with external influences – the opinions of others, societal systems – and we bravely challenge their sway. We put the popular motivational quotes under scrutiny, questioning their role in our professional lives, and warn against the fleeting nature of motivation that is rooted in comparison or competition. As we close this odyssey, we hand you a valuable treasure – the crucial lesson of rituals and habits as a sustainable source of motivation. So, prepare yourself for an enlightening journey through the dense forests of motivation, and let's conquer this together!
Welcome back to the Music Industry podcast. Today we're talking about motivation in terms of what keeps you motivated to keep going with your career, because it's not like being an artist. You get paid at the end of every month, so if you have a bad, unmotivated day, then you know you've got your paycheck coming. It sometimes is very unfulfilling, and I think this is going to be an interesting episode because Maddie and I have very different work. I'm trying not to say ethic work, approach to work and what actually motivates us. So I think that, whichever type of person you are, hopefully from us, you'll be able to relate to one of us in our work processes.
Speaker 2:And I think it's interesting as well, because I don't quite understand your mentality for it and I don't think you quite understand mine, because we're just different people.
Speaker 1:Well, I'm jealous of yours massively.
Speaker 2:I see I'm jealous of yours in a way of my, the things that drive me to be motivated and keep me going. I think it's also the reason that I get more stressed in certain things, whereas you deal very well with stress and you can well. Maybe you're hiding it, but the way that you can deal with stress is very different to mine. Mine's quite go, go, go, go, go, go, suddenly explode, burn out, whereas you'll kind of approach things as they come, and I think that's also linked to the motivation because we have similar work difference or work mentalities or schedules and things like that, like completely different.
Speaker 1:True, true. I tend to look at things in the bigger picture, like whether this happened in the last podcast. It kept happening.
Speaker 2:Which is actually ironic because that talks about like that keeps you motivated.
Speaker 1:So what that was very good, very good kind of segue was that I use an app called Motion, which I very rarely have, a I very rarely buy something from an Instagram ad. I'm kind of like when you work in Instagram advertising, you kind of know what's behind it, so you're a bit more.
Speaker 2:Basically, everything's a scam.
Speaker 1:Yeah so well not everything's a scam.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you bought that soap once. Oh yeah, that lasted like two days. So, anyway, it's a to-do list app where it reorganizes all of your to-do list based on what is your priority, how much time do you have when you need it done by, and it will tell you what is next to be done. And that notification just now that came through was a reminder for me to film a specific Instagram story, and the reason I've got that is because the way I work is my mind is very scatological. My brain is like a firework display in terms of thoughts. I am constantly being grubbed in different directions in what I am thinking and it makes for my work progress to be quite. It's like running through treacle, because to stay focused on one thing is very difficult for me. I've done like the online test for ADHD and stuff. I don't have the hyperactive side of things.
Speaker 1:So mine to complete the way I work is that I will have take a long time to get stuck into a project or a task. It takes me probably around half an hour of doing really bad, unfocused work in order to get to that stage where I am often running. So I'll do half an hour and I'll be constantly just thrown around the place in terms of my thoughts. I'll be randomly trying to work and then suddenly I'm on BBC News and I'm reading an article on BBC News which I can tell from my messages because, say, it's like the morning and we're not in the office or something.
Speaker 2:It'll be like send a link to a car, send a link to a YouTube video, discuss something about work, and I'm like whoa for me, I'm on a task, focused on it. I could spend like eight hours doing one task. But, I'll just see my notifications from Slack just being like have you seen? There's a new thing at McDonald's.
Speaker 1:How are you doing?
Speaker 2:this right now, but you still get to your end goal and get the work done, but in just such a different way to me, which has taken me and probably yourself, for me as well a long time to understand, because from the other person's perspective it's kind of frustrating, because we work so differently, but it works well because we definitely kind of the areas that one of us falls back, the other one kind of goes forward in.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So the pros to the way I work is I'm a very ideas oriented person, in a way where I'd be trying to fall asleep and because of the way my mind is, I can't really get to sleep very quickly I'll randomly think of a thought or an idea and I'll write it down all of the time. So even right now I've got ideas for what I want to say in this podcast and if you look at the timings, they are hours apart from the topic of this podcast of the points I'd like to make. Then the reason for that is because I can't just sit down and write down the points. I've got to say this is what I want to achieve, I'll do a little bit of it and then suddenly things just pop up as they go.
Speaker 1:So very, very different. It tends to be a case of I need to get into a state of flow which I might talk about later where I need to do half an hour and then I'm often running, and then randomly one night I will be up till like three am to complete a task for no reason, don't know why. I am someone who needs to feel inspired to get something done and be in the right mood for it. I hate that. I wish I could change it, but I can't.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:So that's me. What's what? You're a lot more of a grinder.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm a lot more like strategic with things as well. Like I will have like your to-do list is basically based on like importance and instead of doing that, I'll like date mine. So, for example, we I yesterday did a course with a Spotify editor and that course was fantastic. So I was like I want to get this out ASAP. So I stayed up until probably like half 10, getting it uploaded and like edits it and everything, and I could do that all in one spin. I probably spent like three hours overall just doing it, but I set a date on it and wanted to do it and I can kind of tell myself what my priorities are and just focus on it. I don't necessarily need to persuade myself it's a good idea, whereas I think sometimes in your head you, because you're looking at the bigger picture it has to be like to hit that end goal, whereas if I need to get it done, I'll get it done.
Speaker 1:How would you feel if you didn't?
Speaker 2:That's my flaw. I kind of feel like I maybe punish myself if I don't, even if it's a most pathetic task. So, say, am I to-do list? It's like send, make sure you pay that invoice. If, at the end of the day, I haven't paid it, I'll be like, oh no, I need to go back to my laptop and do that even though I've shut off for the evening, like that sort of thing is my frustrating part, whereas for you that probably wouldn't bother you.
Speaker 1:No, and in fact I know that if I had edited in as late as 10 o'clock at night, I wouldn't be able to sleep. So, I will have cut myself off anyway, even though I wanted to continue because I know that it would. I would suffer the next day for it.
Speaker 2:But because of the way I work, it does mean that I will like work and work and work, and then sometimes it can just explode Because, instead of looking at that's a priority, that's a priority for the long term, it will be more focused on like just getting stuff done, because I can sit for like eight hours on one task, which is where, like, we definitely have pros and cons to both of our work ethics and like how we're motivated. However, I think you've done this really well. Like the last year is like not punishing yourself for being that way, like you're motivated by different things, so that's absolutely fine. You just say, like cool, if I wanna work till 3 am this day, I will, but if I'm also gonna wake up at 11 and start, then that's also fine. It's like, however, you're motivated to do it.
Speaker 1:Did you know that? They say that with addiction, the punishing yourself for relapsing is what keeps you addicted? So Cause high is in lows? I actually don't know. I don't know the explanation, I just know that that is the case. So there's like a cycle of a relapse. Then you try and get back on it and then you fall off and then you punish yourself.
Speaker 2:Which is very funny, because I have a very, very addictive personality, in a way of like if I do something, I'm obsessed with it, and maybe that's also reflected in what motivates me being kind of addicted to not the punishment but like the drive and like you could fail, sort of thing just staying above water constantly.
Speaker 1:True, possibly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1:And this podcast is also going to be about. Going to be about motivation, and it'd be interesting to hear what motivates you in the first instance.
Speaker 2:Like to actually do something.
Speaker 1:To do something, yeah, to achieve your goals, like what makes you, instead of playing with Grom, your little dog, down here. It's a very cute little dog.
Speaker 2:That's a hard thing to not do. Just not play with him.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's true. So you could theoretically play with Grom all day and you don't.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting because I think that there have been stages where there's been a few months where I probably have spent a lot of my day like just mooching and getting the basic things done and just playing with Grom sort of thing.
Speaker 2:For me I think I always have to have it as like where we're going next and we see cycles in how we work. I think together and in the business, in a way of like we'll have a massive meeting, create a plan of attack, create like an idea of where we wanna be. Then suddenly both of us at the same time I think you see it in our work it just goes rum and it does that for a bit and then we might have some downtime plodding along trying to keep that going, and then we'll do the same thing and it repeats. I find like after that initial idea and plan and like the basic task to put in place, to go towards that, that's when I'm like fully at it and I can go. But when we're plodding along and you know that even if you didn't open your computer things would still be absolutely fine, that is a hard time to motivate yourself.
Speaker 1:And would you say that you have a bigger fear of failing or a bigger fear of not succeeding?
Speaker 2:Ooh, probably a bigger fear of failing.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Interesting.
Speaker 2:Because there's more to lose now. It was actually really interesting. I was gonna put this on my story. I completely forgot to. So if you go on your Instagram story, you can go on like your archives and see what you shared, like this time last year, whatever and I had a post up from 2019 and my head was on the table on a train. It was about 11 o'clock at night and the caption was something like absolutely exhausted from this week. Insane highs and lows, but the highs make it worth it. And I was like what were the lows in 2019? Like, bless me, what were the lows? And it's because then we had nothing to lose, so we were motivating ourselves on the idea of success, whereas now there's probably a little bit of me that's motivated on the idea of failure, which is interesting. I don't know if that's negatively or positively impact my motivation, but it's definitely kept me motivated. I don't know what about you.
Speaker 1:More so fear of not succeeding.
Speaker 2:Really.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'd say and this came from Mark Manson Spook you said that you're either someone if you need to be motivated, you need to decide whether you are scared of failing completely and losing everything or if you're scared of not succeeding and you need to paint a picture in your head of what that looks like in order to keep you going, because that will be a very scary picture, but you've got to decide first. Which one is you? For me, yeah, because I feel like that weed. Whatever direction you go in, you've learned so much that it will set you up for something else. So if you're an artist and you've been doing social media and you've been reading all those books about our books, youtube videos and blog articles about doing good social media and then you create your own social media, the amount of experience you're getting will always set you up for being able to be successful in your next venture. So you're never, really ever starting completely again. You can always just fast track it to where you left off in that next thing I've found as well.
Speaker 2:As I've grown up and kind of found myself more and become more confident in being like a business owner, I've become more motivated by finding other things outside of the business. So, for example, I go to the gym like five times a week and I'll spend probably two hours there, and in the past I punished myself for that because I'd be like you should be focusing on the thing that you're growing your future. And then I don't know what happened, it was probably like a year ago. It kind of hit me of like this makes me a better person and I love it and it makes me more motivated as soon as I get home. So why am I not putting effort into this and like actually not feeling guilty about going? And I found like the last year, dedicating a good amount of time to doing something that I love that's outside of the business has meant that when I'm like sat down looking at my laptop working, I'm like, yeah, I want to actually be doing this.
Speaker 2:If that makes sense.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And we actually spoke to a guy on a consultant's secret about this. He was like talking about like all these pressures he put on himself on social media and you said something like it sounds like you need a hobby, because he was so obsessed with like his social media numbers and how well he was going to do and putting pressure on being a full-time artist that you could tell he wasn't even passionate about being a musician anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So it's like finding that hobby outside of what you want to do makes you more motivated to do what you want to do.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yeah. And so what happens when you need to post on, say, social media? So I think a lot of artists will find the most relatable topic is posting on social media. Obviously, you need to feel creative, inspired. What keeps you motivated to keep posting on social media instead of just having a big gap?
Speaker 2:Well, I think it's actually quite apparent with our YouTube channel. So when we first started, we posted something like two or three videos a week for the first, would you say, year. And what motivated us to do that is we saw instant growth. Every video we put out, we saw people caring.
Speaker 2:And that's quite short-term motivation, I believe, because if you're posting because of instant gratification, it's short-term, because it's not going to stay, it's not going to continue growing at that rate. So I think at first that probably motivated us and would motivate a lot of people because, say, you post a video on TikTok and you go viral, you're going to be very tempted to just post every single minute of every day. But after a while I think it becomes like what do you actually want to talk about and what do you actually enjoy talking about? So, for example, this style of podcast we did one of these on Monday and we're already doing another one and we hadn't posted a podcast in so long.
Speaker 1:And yet it has nothing to do with the numbers.
Speaker 2:No, we genuinely enjoy talking about. We do this anyway. If we go out for a nando we'll have a conversation like this, so why not just record it? And it's also apparent in our personal lives that we both really enjoy making content. We both have a bit of a personality where we enjoy posting something and seeing how it performs. So we do it as a hobby as well in different areas. But you'll also see on those channels ups and downs in ways of might post once a week for two months. You might not post for like a year. And that's because we post when we want to, because we genuinely enjoy it and you still see growth.
Speaker 1:That's a good takeaway for artists from this entire thing is very much so that if you get obsessed with the numbers, you'll lose the motivation. So, therefore, you've got to find the thing that is for you and once you start, say posting on social media and it's for you and it's never for the numbers, or say you can't be bothered to go into the studio and start writing another song, the chances are that if you're obsessed about your Spotify numbers, obsessed about your social media numbers, then that is going to make you less motivated, whereas if you're not focusing on the numbers and you're focusing on what else you get out of creating a song and putting it out there, the rest, especially the numbers, start to take care of themselves when we don't know what they do.
Speaker 2:I think it's like finding your why, and I think most people not maybe in music but in life think their why is money. But it's actually not a lot of the time. When you start seeing the financial rewards, a lot of people get over it quickly and the motivation drops.
Speaker 2:You'll see it with a lot of business owners. An example is the guy that owns Gymshark. When Gymshark started blowing up, he bought a super car. He did all this fancy stuff. He now just drives around like a Jeep or something. He doesn't care. People just lose that motivation for money once they achieve it. It's understanding what the underlying why is. Is the why because you want people to remember you when you're dead and remember your message? Is it genuinely just because you want people to sing your lyrics back to you and understand your lyrics? Is there a message behind that? Understanding why you do it means that when you're going into every single thing you do, you understand why you're motivated or not. The example of going into the studio if you don't want to go into the studio, you don't really want to be making music. But if you do, you don't want to be making the music you're currently making.
Speaker 1:On top of the money. I would like to do a podcast on money, especially as an artist and when it starts to come in Because it was Jim Carrey, I think he said I wish people everyone could be rich and famous just for a day, because they realize it's not actually all that. I think the best example of that is the fact that Bill Gates is still doing stuff with Microsoft. He's not CEO anymore, he's still doing his own thing. You have Jeff.
Speaker 2:Bezos.
Speaker 1:Jeff Bezos is still doing things. It's not for the money. He could buy the entire planet If he wanted to. Richard Branson, he's still doing things and opening new companies. It's in their blood. It's actually got nothing to do with greed or money. It is to do with the fact that it's in their blood and therefore, when times were difficult because the reason wasn't the numbers, it was just because they wanted to do it anyway. That is what kept them motivated, and I'd say that's actually a good segue into the next point, which is how to stay motivated when it's not going your way. Does something spring to mind first for you?
Speaker 2:It's weird. I sometimes find I feel like I'm more motivated when things aren't going my way, because there's a bit of a kick up the arse, maybe linking back to the fact that I'm terrified of failing. Maybe that's solidifying that a little bit. It's like the failure is tapping you on the shoulder a little bit and you're like oh shit, okay, I've really got to go now. Maybe it's that, but do you think there are people that when things get tough, they sit back Like is that a trait that people have?
Speaker 1:I wouldn't say sit back.
Speaker 2:But like freak out, maybe not. So there's panic mode which you see a lot. Yeah, you see that all the time.
Speaker 1:So say, for example, your song's not getting the streams.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:A terrible idea would be to start plugging it more on social media. But people do and what happens is, say, you've been signed by a label and it's one release and they want to see how this release goes and you want to get that deal continued for the next release and it's not getting the streams. You're going to start plugging it more on social media, destroying your audience. You're going to start reaching out to random companies that you may have stayed away from if things were going well. There's all sorts of things that can end up, when you're in panic mode, making the wrong decisions and I'm very aware of that as a person that if anything goes wrong, take a step back rather than taking a step forward. Just figure things out, make a plan, a long-term plan, because short-term decisions will never work out in the long term, if that makes sense in a sense, where you can end up ruining the long term just for the sake of that short-term panic.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, you see it all the time with buying followers and buying streams, and we see it in business a lot People just freaking out and then it teaches us quite a lot and, I think, keeps us on the right path, in a way of we know where we want to be in the industry and how we want to assist artists and grow. And if anything steps away from our morals and ethics, we wouldn't be comfortable. And I had a conversation with my partner last night. Actually, we were driving to see her family and I was telling her about a contract that we lost.
Speaker 2:It was the influence marketing conversation we were having with Charles and she was like wow, you guys seem very stuck in your ways. Do you think you're going to always be like that? And I was like 100%, I don't care if it means losing out on money, because long term it's going to be something that we stand for and is on brand and means we don't damage our brand. And I think that's what you see with artists, with businesses, with everyone. When you hit panic mode, you lose track of what your actual brand is and what your purpose is, and that's when it all goes wrong. And all that work you did beforehand was basically pointless.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, you've absolutely ruined it. What about in terms of staying motivated if things you just don't feel like it? So say you're a little bit ill or you're just going through a bit of a bad time, but your single was ready for release. The label agreed that this date You're going to have to start creating some content. How do you deal with that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean, I feel like everyone's different in the way of. We've had conversations about how we're motivated and it's different, so for them it might be completely different. But it's difficult because a lot of the time you're going to have someone behind the scenes especially if they're investing in your music saying this is what you have to do, but I think it's always bringing it back to, like we said before, why you want to do it. So say, for example, the label, your manager's like you need to be creating TikTok videos for this song. Ok, cool, most people release music to get their message out there. Ok, use that content to tell your message and speak it out to people. And I think that's I mean, it's easier said than done, because a lot of people aren't motivated to make content, but finding a way to do it in a way that you actually enjoy is your best bet.
Speaker 2:I mean most people think they hate social media and we spoke about this in the last one but 99% of the time you just hate what's on social media. So, find your own way of doing it, and you'll find your motivation in it.
Speaker 1:So if you've had a sleepless night, grom was keeping you up all night, never, never. He was barking all night and you've got to create a say on Instagram reel for your record label in order announcing it. And you are tired. Do you still do it or do you put it off till tomorrow, after more sleep?
Speaker 2:See, I'm not impacted by sleep like massively.
Speaker 1:Let's pretend you are, I am.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I know you are. I would put it off if it was something that was very important.
Speaker 2:However, I don't believe content is that important because I think you should be able to pump it out pretty easily. It's not that time consuming. So in that situation I'd just say do it, get it over and done with, get it out there. However, if it's something that takes up a lot of your energy like we're different on camera, like it took you a while to kind of get used to it, whereas I don't really care if it requires more energy for you personally, do it another day. But I can't speak for the individual. What would you say? Because I can't relate either, because I'm fine with not too much sleep.
Speaker 1:Whereas you're dead. I'll pretend you're ill and I've got a cold. Oh yeah, I'll totally push it off. You put it off.
Speaker 2:Because in the past, with Burstimove, I was unwell, hungover, all these things I would just create Because I had the knowledge in my head. All I had to do was speak to a camera. It wasn't a lot of energy, whereas now I think our videos are a lot more time consuming and thought out and I probably would wait.
Speaker 1:So I've got a saying that I said to myself. I've never said this to you before.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:That I say, if you don't do it now, when this situation arises again, you'll never do it. So say for example I'm passing a McDonald's and I really fancy a McDonald's I say to myself that if you have this McDonald's now, every time you pass a McDonald's you'll have a McDonald's, Because nothing's going to be different the next time you pass a McDonald's.
Speaker 1:So you've got to look at the circumstances that. Is there going to be anything else open for you to eat? How hungry are you? Do you need that food right now? And then you've got to answer to yourself long term. If you are slightly hungry and there's going to be loads of other options open that you can have, then unfortunately you're going to have McDonald's almost daily.
Speaker 2:That's an interesting one as well, because I think one thing I didn't mention is one thing that motivates me without realising is habit.
Speaker 1:I've got that written down, so I'm happy for you too.
Speaker 2:For example, with the gym, I've made it a habit that I do push, pull, legs break. So that is my habit. If it's raining, if it's freezing, if anything, I will go and I will do that as the habit I've created which motivates me. Because if you break that habit I kind of have a bit of a two day rule unless you're ill or on holiday where if I haven't done that habit for two days I'm most likely never going to do it again. So that kind of keeps me motivated and keeps me in place. And I mean it's the same with a lot of basic tasks I have to do for work as well. It's like I will do it when I have to do it, otherwise that habit's going to go out the window, which I think most people probably have a similar mindset. Do you have that where you have to set like habits in place? Yes, absolutely.
Speaker 1:So, to conclude on whether you should do it or not if you're feeling ill, I would say that my conclusion was that you have to understand what you're going to do long term, because what you do in that moment reflects what you're going to do in the rest of your life. So, if you are feeling ill and you're not going to feel very ill, very often and it's not an often occurrence then put it off. If, however, you're feeling a little bit groggy, a little bit under the weather, tired, a little bit stressed and that happens frequently then you're frequently going to put things off and never succeed.
Speaker 2:I mean it's context.
Speaker 1:That's very much how I think of things In terms of habit, yeah, and there's a book called the Power of Habit. It's phenomenal, and one thing that I thought was fascinating was how people with dementia, if they can form habits, then they remember what to do.
Speaker 2:That's probably why most of them remember where they live. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because they'll always be able to return home Exactly. But they'll just be out in the middle of the night and things Exactly, and they'll be like, yeah, that's interesting and you're absolutely right. When I was frequently going to the gym, I would actually end up in the gym without consciously having to make a decision to go, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like when you drive to work, a lot of people forget their commute because you do it all the time. It's habit. But it's also like you're not motivated to brush your teeth twice a day yeah, but you do it because it's the habit.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I understand with the music side. That's creativity. That's something that you can't create a habit from, but going into the studio, or like pushing yourself to practice your instrument, that's habit and those are the things that keep you motivated and keep you on track.
Speaker 1:Did you know that the toothpaste, the tingly feeling, is added?
Speaker 2:Why? To make you feel like you've actually achieved something. Yeah, oh, that's better.
Speaker 1:So when you go to bed and you don't have that tingly feeling if something feels wrong, yeah, and it feels wrong that you haven't done it. So before that was added, people didn't brush their teeth regularly. People had awful teeth, that's right. And then they added it it was Colgate who did it they added it and eventually, once they had that kind of like minty freshness feeling, then people got that regular feeling in their mouth and something felt missing when it wasn't there.
Speaker 2:Clever yeah.
Speaker 1:But same with Febreze. Febreze was scentless and they said that they couldn't believe this is all from power of habit. They said that they couldn't believe that they'd invented a liquid that gets rid of odors and nobody was buying it. So they had to advertise it in a way where they created a habit of using Febreze rather than actually using it as like a product to solve things.
Speaker 2:So yeah, Clever. One fun thing for me I don't know if you have another point is I cannot be motivated in my everyday life unless I've like kind of sorted out my life as a whole in the way of like my basic health.
Speaker 2:So obviously I've spoken about the gym, that's one thing, but I don't feel motivated unless I've showered, unless I've put on an outfit. Do you remember in COVID when we were living, it's like through Zoom, constantly, no matter what I was closed, I'd dried my hair, I'd had makeup on every single day Because otherwise I just couldn't motivate myself. And I understand everyone's different, but I do believe, like, say, you are a full time musician, it can feel impossible to motivate yourself if you just wake up every morning and you're like where'd I start? Go out bed, make your bed, shower, get ready, then start your day. Things like that I do find like the most basic things can keep me motivated, because just getting my laptop and putting it in front of me in bed I can't do personally, can you?
Speaker 1:I can't get anything productive done in bed. I will do very basic tasks with my morning coffee, if it comes to my mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Again inspired yeah.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to change. I think we needed to put idols logo on our website after working with them. I did that in bed with a coffee.
Speaker 2:Yeah, see, I can't do that.
Speaker 1:I'm out bed immediately, Because I was like well, that's going to take me like 10 minutes. Yeah, Just do it now. Mm-hmm, Nothing else on YouTube I want to watch right now. There's nothing on BBC News. I'll just do that, Like that's how my life works.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because your friends like oh yeah, I'll do that I'll do that, Whereas I'm like let's see what there is today.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Such different minds, but going back to like the first thing of don't punish yourself for it, because everyone's motivated by different things. Everyone works differently. It's just working out how you work and what motivates you and then, as soon as you've worked out that, you can work out everything from there.
Speaker 1:And don't yeah, and also don't wait for motivation to come.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, it doesn't really come. It doesn't, Motivation doesn't really exist in a way it's like happiness, it's like this yeah, Happiness is yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, that's another.
Speaker 2:That's another thing.
Speaker 1:I've got a theory on happiness that doesn't actually exist, so I'll that sounds really depressing.
Speaker 2:It does sound depressing. It's not depressing.
Speaker 1:It's replace happiness with joy is the summary version, but we'll do a full podcast on that. So yeah, I don't believe that motivation necessarily exists in a way where people feel like they're going to get out up one day and it's going to be there and you can't wait for it to hit you. So for me, I don't feel like it exists. I feel like willpower does exist and I think habit does exist.
Speaker 1:And also the power of flow. So flow is if you. You can watch videos for hours on YouTube based on it. But I believe that a lot of people's productivity is how quickly they can get into the state of flow. So so once you start working on something, you've got all these thoughts going around your head. For me, after around half an hour, like I said at the start of the podcast, all of the other thoughts just disappear and I'm focused on this one thing and thankfully, I can get things done very quickly in that power, in that state of flow. And I think that some people don't know it exists and some people don't know. That's why they one day feel motivated and one day they can get something done is because they've given their mind enough time.
Speaker 2:Given a chance, basically.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people don't give their mind enough opportunity to almost forgive yourself for doing bad work in the first instance, and then suddenly their mind gets focused and then they're able to be kind of more motivated and productive. And I was. I was laughing because I was going to say the example of this podcast, where every podcast you start when you kind of mix up your words a little bit, you're you're trying to think too much, you got lots of thoughts in your head, you get to whatever, how many minutes this is in.
Speaker 1:And then you start. If you're watching on YouTube, our body language is different. It's that is flow, because you start to get into it more. You're not thinking about other things, you're not thinking about the camera setup or whether the mic's on and we've lost the entire recording. That's happened before, so yeah, so for me, I think, if you are one of those people, you've got to understand how your mind works in order to, to to be motivated. Because don't watch motivational videos on YouTube?
Speaker 2:I hate self help books as well. Like I actually used to read them, especially when we first started the business, because I always had this mindset that I was like really young. No one took me seriously. It probably took me like two, three years to get over that and I used to read them and I look back and I'm like things don't work like that. You can't read something and someone goes like you can do this, this is great, try your hardest and then go. Yeah, I'm motivated today because some words on a page told you to Like maybe you do need someone like telling you that it's okay and you're going to do great and motivate you. But I highly doubt that some words on a page are going to do that.
Speaker 1:No, it's very short term. There's no such thing.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of it's for image as well.
Speaker 1:It'll fizzle out. In fact, sometimes the high of watching a motivational video or motivational piece of content can put you too high. For you to then crash it's more so about keeping a nice level is much more productive and motivating than a motivational piece of content itself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I do believe that some of it's for image as well, like how great does some people feel seeing on the train, just like reading my motivational? Book or like share it on my story. Or like this is me watching a motivational video, boomerang, like stuff like that. If your motivation is what other people think of you, that's going to be so short term as well, because no one really cares about you. At the end of the day, they don't.
Speaker 1:And one thing that I noticed I said in the last podcast that if you are too desperate for the Lamborghini, then you'll get all the. Then systems will find a way of making you think you're on the road for a Lamborghini like Forex traders or people selling courses to instant success. So the systems in place seem to have a way of taking your money away from you, or your time or your attention. Very much the same with motivation as well, in a sense, where you will see a piece of content which says don't let your old friends bring you down or the toxic people in your life bring you down, and then everyone's like sharing that, even though like what? What are you achieving?
Speaker 2:by that yeah.
Speaker 1:I think that's quite fascinating that people feel good about sharing that, and actually, for me, that shows you are more frustrated with where you are than what you actually think that that post means or the message that it's giving out. So don't get sucked into these motivational quotes or anything like that. Think more so about habit, think more so about flow and also just what you've got going on around your life in general is going to be infinitely more influential for your career as an artist in general than finding some content online that's going to make you do it.
Speaker 2:Also when we were saying like, don't be motivated by people liking your stuff, it also works the other way. Don't be demotivated by the idea of people not liking it. So it's like people often terrified about posting on socials or posting their first song in case that family and friends see it, so they can't motivate themselves to get it out there. But again, you're doing it for other people more than anything, whereas if you have a passion and a drive to create music, you will literally write one song a day and just be like you're not caring. And those are the people that are most probably going to break, because they genuinely love what they do and it can just flow because you love it so much.
Speaker 1:And I can tell you now if you are trying to be successful and you're looking forward to the opportunity to show your friends or make the people you hate jealous, or the people at school, I can tell you now that once you make it, you won't give a shit about what other people think. You'll be so far down the line in your career. You'll have all sorts of problems the point in which you thought that you would be able to sort of make your friends jealous or make them regret calling you names at school or whatever. You'll still have the problems. You'll still have so many problems that you won't even feel like you've made it in order to actually feel good about it.
Speaker 1:And when you get far enough down the line to feel good about it, you can't be bothered with them anyway. They're so far away from you in life that it doesn't matter. So don't be motivated by making people jealous or proving people wrong, or proving the haters or the doubters wrong, because that motivation, it fizzles out, it doesn't exist and it doesn't last very long.
Speaker 2:I also think a lot of people use that as their inspirational story. It wasn't the motivation. Like the amount of people that would be like yes, I'm a billionaire now and my teacher in year six suck it because you told me I was never going to make it Like. That didn't motivate you?
Speaker 1:No, you don't carry them.
Speaker 2:It's not the thing that pushed you. It just sounds cool for your book, like things like that. Aren't the motivation that you'll find yourself very unhappy if it is?
Speaker 1:So I think that's a good place to leave it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that was a lot longer than I expected.
Speaker 1:It was a lot more motivated to do it.
Speaker 1:Wow and but. But you know what? If you told me that I don't know how long this has been very long, actually. If you told me I had to sit down and do a podcast that this length of time, I would not feel motivated. However, because we started it, then it just flew by, and I think that, for me, is is a very good life lesson. Don't look for those boosting motivation, just look for that constant habit. Cool, all right. Thanks very much for watching. If you're looking for any kind of consultancy or advice opportunities in the music industry, do check out our membership. I'll leave the link below or in the description. It's unbelievable we say it every time the feedback we've had from artists. They're getting opportunities that you never get in the music industry. No one else is providing you with access to these people in terms of Netflix supervisors, spotify curators, top industry lawyers everything you could possibly need to break as an artist is there and it's all real, it's all legit, unbelievable. So do check out our membership and we'll see you in the next video.