Hey – hope you are having a great week!

Unfortunately employees of FOPP all across the UK are not having such a good time and so I thought I would take time out this week from my normal Blog, to tell you about what's going on with them.

There was a great deal of speculation in the music industry a couple of weeks ago around why FOPP stores were closed for a day – "it was a stock-taking day", FOPP spokespeople told the press. And whilst this was probably the case, it was because the underlying reason was that the company was going into administration! As a result 700 employees across the UK have effectively been made redundant, with little hope of getting paid for their last month of work or holiday pay and overtime – let alone any actual redundancy monies – so you can imagine they must be feeling pretty cheesed off!

However in the face of adversity they are trying to help save their and most music lovers, fav record store by setting up a specific MySpace profile 'Help Save FOPP' – check out: http://www.myspace.com/helpsavefopp and make friends!

They have also set up an online petition to help save FOPP – you can sign this for yourself at: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/SAVEFOPP/

In addition they are trying to set up a number of benefit gigs across the country to help raise monies for those who need to pay their rent and other living expenses; to raise cash for those unsigned bands that were selling their cds in the store – who will now not get paid for the sales made or even see their stock back; to commemorate the end of what was a great shop and to celebrate music generally. So if you hear about a gig in your local area – get involved if you can or just attend!

The closure of FOPP is a real blow to the record industry and to the purchase of physical formats of music in the high street. You will not get such a great deal from other record stores, who are also having a 'hard time' with sales – and why is this? – for many reasons, but one being because the major supermarkets have got in on the deal.

So please, please support your local independent record stores – you get a much better service from them anyway – as their knowledge of music is second to none and you won't be able to find the obscure record/cd from those supermarkets!

A final word has to be an excerpt from an article in Music Week (14.7.07) which states: 'One former FOPP employee says, "The real tragedy is that FOPP had at least 25 to 30 very good shops, which were very profitable. FOPP was ideally placed, bucking the trend on the high street, staying off-pitch – just like record shops used to be – keeping the range individual and maintaining as far as possible the indie ethos." "The level of sympathy expressed from all sides of the industry reflects the knowledge that it didn't have to happen, which makes it the more sad that it has."'

Let's hope that something positive happens with those 'profitable' FOPP stores, if not all of them, and that a buyer will be found to take them over. If only I had that kind of money…

In the meantime, I take my hat off to those FOPP employees, who are taking great steps in order to try to move forward with their music careers – keep up the good work!

Until next time - a very saddened, but optimistic, Linz xx

Hello!   Really hope you're having a great week.

Continuing the theme of what or how you may be stopped from achieving your music career goals, this blog is all about your time.

When I talk to artists, musicians and people within the music industry, the barrier that seems to stop you from moving forward the most, is your lack of time – for some of you, your perceived lack of time is an avoidance tactic – where you are making your lack of time an excuse as to why you haven't done something. For others, you genuinely believe that you have little or no time to focus on your music career goals.

So if you are one of those that fit either of these categories, I'm now going to challenge you around your lack of time. Because if you really want to move forward in your music career, you'll make the time – yes of course you have other obligations such as your day job, looking after your kids, keeping a home, college and homework, revision et al, but generally speaking you are awake for around 16 hours a day. Half of that may be taken up with your day job and travelling to and from – but what do you do for the rest of the time?

It's my guess that if you were to make a timetable showing each half hour of your day from when you wake until you go to sleep, and enter into it your daily routines – your must do's - that you will see spaces of time that you are currently wasting! Okay so there may not be large chunks of time all neatly set together, but in one half hour you could practice your guitar, in another you could continue writing your latest song, practice singing, respond to your MySpace comments/emails/add some more friends/update your gigging schedule/post a bulletin- the list could go on!   You get my drift, I'm sure.

It's all about your choices – yes you may be tired after a hard day at college or work, and yes it is easier to veg out on the sofa in front of the telly, but that won't help you move forward in your music goals and help you achieve your dreams. Watching the TV every night becomes a habit very quickly and the soaps are very easy to get sucked into – right? You just have to watch the next episode to see what happens (!) – I'll tell you what doesn't happen – you don't move forward!

So this is a big kick up the backside – start looking at where you spend your time and start scheduling into your timetable when and where you are going to undertake specific tasks that will surely move you in the right direction. So, that's another job to sort before you can do this – write out a list of tasks you need or want to do, to move you closer to achieving your music career goals.

Then prioritise them – what is going to shift you forwards the most? Once you've done that, then schedule them into your timetable, and then TAKE ACTION – stay focussed and just do it!

If you are being pulled in all directions by other people wanting some of your time, then again it is about your choice and about balance – yes do go and have some fun – but be aware that by saying "yes" to one thing, you may well be saying "no" to something or someone else. In which case, it may serve you better to make sure that your timetable is a monthly one, so you can schedule your friends and family into some slots that are available, making sure that you have that balance that is necessary to nurture your physical, mental and emotional health, as well as your creativity!

Any problems – comment me or go onto my website where you can download a free report around balancing your life alongside your music career! http://www.bravura-group.com

Have fun !

Linz 

Hey, how're you doing? Good I hope…or are you still procrastinating?

Another reason that you may be procrastinating is because you're being gremlin'd! Okay, I've mentioned your gremlin in a couple of blogs. It's now time to let you into the secret of the gremlin.

Your gremlin is what we coaches know as the little thoughts that go round and round your head that tell you that you are no good! For instance do you recognise your thoughts that say something like:

"Who do you think you are, that you believe you can become a great singer songwriter?"
"What makes you think that you can ever win a Brit Award for best female singer?"
"You're not talented at all"
"YOU'RE NO GOOD AT MUSIC!"
"YOU CAN'T DO THIS!"

Yep, this is your gremlin talking – and not the true, best you at all.

Let me tell you a bit more about your gremlin. Its sole purpose is to make you miserable. It plays on your little insecurities about yourself and/or your abilities, just to keep you in the comfort zone. It doesn't like change and therefore comes out to play whenever you are considering any kind of new venture or progress in your music career or life.

And it can stop you from achieving and fulfilling your music career goals and dreams. So much so that many, many potential artists have been stopped in their tracks because they believed the little negative thoughts in their head that say you can't sing or play or that you are no good!

Don't let your gremlin make you become one of those artists!

How do you get rid of your gremlin? I hear you ask. The not so good news is, is that it is nearly impossible to completely get rid of your gremlin. BUT (and it is a big positive but), you can do a lot to quieten the voice of the gremlin and keep it under your control. With you being in control of your gremlin you can safely stay focussed, move closer to and achieve your ultimate music career goals.

This is how you can do it:

• Start listening out for your gremlin and the negative thoughts that it spurts (like the ones above).

• Once you've tuned into the gremlin – jot down the thoughts it is saying about your efforts, skills and abilities – you can even write them into a journal – by writing the thoughts down it externalises them and gets them out of your head, leaving your mind clearer for real positive thoughts.

• Take a good look at what you have written down and then ask yourself – is this true? For the majority of the time you will find that actually those thoughts are a load of rubbish and to prove it you can refer to your list of musical achievements (see my blog called 'Your music career achievements') that will show that your gremlin is spouting rubbish. If you hold your gremlin up to scrutiny it will often squirm and wriggle away into the dark recesses of your mind in which it lives!

• You can then go on to change your negative attitude about yourself, that is in line with your gremlin's, to one that is positive – you do actually have a choice in this – you can choose to think positively. This may seem difficult at first because you can get into the habit of thinking negatively about yourself. So the next time you have a negative thought immediately banish it and choose to re-word the thought into a positive one.

For instance check out the following dialogue:

Your gremlin speaking: "you can't possibly sing that song for your next audition – you know you can't reach that top note!"

New positive thought: "I love that song and I am going to perform it really well at my next audition – I know that it ends on a very high note, but I am going to work really hard with my vocal coach to hit that note perfectly."

Which thought makes you feel good about yourself? Which thought keeps you focussed on your music career goals? Which thought moves you closer to your ultimate music success? Hopefully the latter!

Your gremlin actually can have a lot to answer for – so don't become a victim to your gremlin and please feel free to comment or contact me to help you conquer your gremlin if it is proving too difficult to do by yourself.

I'll finish now with a thought for you to consider. How much would you regret not pursuing your music career, if you were to listen to and give in to your gremlin?

Until next time…

Linz 

Hey – Hope you are having a great week!

Also hope you enjoyed my last blog and have been able to focus on your music career goals without too many distractions!

In this blog I want to talk to you about procrastination. What is procrastination? The Oxford Dictionary defines it as: deferring action. The 'crastinate' part of the word comes from the Latin meaning 'of tomorrow'. So if you defer action until tomorrow – then there is a chance that you will never take action at all – coz as you all know 'tomorrow' never comes!

When you procrastinate (and yes I do too!), you are avoiding doing something – even if you know that what you are avoiding will be good for you. For example, you may have sent a producer a sample of your music and you have been told to ring him for his feedback. You may be procrastinating around making that essential call – putting it off each day and making excuses as to why you haven't the time to call him or stating that he will be busy and won't have the time to talk to you anyway.

We make all the excuses under the sun for blocking our way to achieving our desired music career goals. And procrastination can become a habit!

You can identify when you are procrastinating when you have internal or external dialogues such as:

You'll do it soon
You'll just finish listening to this CD and then you'll give that producer a call
You'll send that demo off tomorrow
You'll send the demo off when you've written your biog – you'll write your biog once you've had your photo taken – you'll get your photo taken soon!
And so on…

When you are in the grip of procrastination often other symptoms show up such as:

You feel tired or restless
You can become irritable and fractious with other people
You can start to overeat – or comfort eat
You can go over and over and round in circles thinking about the situation that you are procrastinating about
You can become weepy and highly sensitive
You can become critical about yourself and get depressed

If your procrastination does become habitual then your ideas for your music, your half-started songs and your ultimate dreams for your music career will come to a stand-still.

So what can you do to stop procrastinating on your music career projects? The following exercise may help you:

Think of a time when you were successful in a music project? And then go on to answer the following questions:

Did you want to undertake the music project?
How did you do it?
What helped you do it?
What thoughts went through your head before you attempted the music project?
How did you feel about the music project before you attempted it?
What thoughts were going through your head as you were going through the process of the music project?
How did you feel once you had completed the music project?

Now compare your answers to how you are currently thinking and feeling about your present music project that you are procrastinating about.

Do you actually want to do your current project? If your answer is No – then this is probably why you are procrastinating in the first instance. What are your beliefs about the current music project that might make you not want to undertake it? Are your beliefs true or valid?

If you do want to undertake your current music project, what energy and experiences can you take from your previously successful project and replicate with your current one?

By answering all the above questions you are arming yourself with a lot of knowledge – knowledge that can help you move forward with your present music project – by looking at the positives of your previous successes you know that you can be focussed, committed, decisive and effective.

So it is important to use your strengths and build on them, instead of focussing on your weakness that stop you from moving forward and achieving your music career goals.

Hope you have found this useful – the subject of self-sabotage, that includes procrastination, is huge and I could go on and on – but should you need extra help to work through your areas of procrastination, then do get in touch.

All the best for now and good luck ?

Linz x

Hey!

Well it's been a few weeks since my last blog and you may have wondered where I got to. I have to be truthful and say that I've been really busy with a load of other stuff - and so this brought me to the subject of this week's blog - what is distracting you from your music career?

It could be a multitude of things - you may be holding down a full time job whilst trying to create your music in your spare time. Or you may be at college or Uni and have loads of work and revision to do for your exams. You may have very little spare time, if any at all, and trying to cram in all your other priorities may stop you really focussing on your music.

Yeah, life happens, and before you know it 2 or 3 weeks have gone past and you've not had a chance to move any of your plans forward in your quest to succeed in your music career, whatever shape that comes in.

So, what can you do about all these distractions? Well, here's an exercise for you. First, make a list of all the things that you have done over the last week that have stopped you from focusing on your music. Eg: visiting your folks, going shopping, going to the cinema or the pub with friends, babysitting your kid brother, homework(!), falling asleep after a hard days work and so on...

Then take a good look down your list and consider whether you really had to do all those things - did you have a choice? Could you have said "No" to any of them? What would the consequences have been if you had said No, to any of them? Could your time have been better spent on focussing on an aspect of your music career?

Of course this is not easy - there are so many things that you want to do and often have to do in your daily lives. And so I'm not suggesting for one moment that you don't visit your family or friends or go out have some fun - these are essential. What I am going to ask you to do in future is to ask yourself the question "By saying "Yes" to something, like going to see a film, what are you saying "No" to (maybe working on your latest song)?"

Quite often life is all about getting the balance right - you obviously have esential needs - such as food, shelter, warmth, friendsships etc. Then you have the choices - it is with the choices that the above question comes into play more effectively.

And sometimes, something's gotta give - just like my blog for a few weeks - by saying no to the blog, I was able to focus on other stuff within my music career - which is all about helping you musicians to live yours!

There are of course other things that also stop you from moving forward in your music careers such as procrastination and your 'gremlin' - but I'll be telling you about them in future blogs!

Hope you are able to balance your Yes's and No's successfully to stop your distractions and enable you to move forward in your music career - but if not, give me a shout and we can discuss how I can help you!

Until next time!

Linz  

Hello!

It's funny when you start a regular Blog, you're never quite sure what you're going to write about and how it's all going to turn out. Mine has turned into a mini coaching session regarding your music career goals!

So how did you get on last week - have you made your goals KISS?!

This time I'm going to ask you to look at what you have achieved so far that will help you to make it to your ultimate goal within your music career.

To do this I want you to take a blank piece of paper and write down everything you have ever done musically - even if you have to go back to when you were 5 years old - yep, even including learning the recorder at school!

For example:


Don't miss anything out - this is evidence for you to see how far you have already come in your music career - I want you to be proud of this - so however big or small your achievements they are a step forward in the right direction!

Also, some of the above may have given you other skills. For instance 'regular gigging' may have led you to learn:


So now go back to your list and continue writing down all the subsequent skills and experiences you have gained as a result of your music achievements.

What's the point of this exercise? This will help you to see what you are either missing or what you now need to put in place to move you further towards your music career goals. And if nothing else, if ever you are feeling down and that you're not getting anywhere with your music, you can take a look at this list to help you see just how far you have already travelled!

Get back to me with your comments!

Until next time...

Linz xx

Hey, hope you've had a great week!

I also hope that you were able to take some time out to look at your music career dreams last week. In this blog, I want to help you to turn those dreams into a tangible goal.  So how do you do this?

By making them KISS  – in case you haven't heard of this mnemonic, KISS stands for Keep It S.M.A.R.T and Simple.  The SMART section is a mnemonic in its own right and stands for Specific, Measurable, Agreed/Achievable, Realistic and Time-frame.

Before we go into more detail of the ingredients of SMART, let's talk a bit more about goals for the moment – I'm sure you are aware that you can have short, medium and long term goals (long-term goals and your ultimate dream or goal could be the same thing).
 

At the same time it makes sense that each short-term goal you set leads on to you achieving your medium-term goal and that this in turn leads on to you achieving your long-term goal or ultimate dream. Phew!

So, now going back to SMART, let's take a better look at each component, so you can understand how to make your own goals SMART.

S = Specific - so this means being exact or precise in your wording for the goal you are setting.  It doesn't do for your goal to be hazy – for instance, if your goal is "to work in the music industry" - well what as? A performer? In a non-performing role - what exactly do you want to do in the Music Industry.

M = Measurable – which is about being able to record your progress in achieving your goal.  You need to know how far away you are from completing your goal and when you have achieved your goal, what effect it had.  ie:  Have you done it?  What happened?  Has it moved you forward towards your medium or long-term goal?

A=Acheivable - depending on what goal you set, you may need to get agreement from the people you are involving.  Just as an example, you may be in a band and you are wanting to set a goal for the band as a whole - you will need to get their agreement on what you set, because if you don't, you just may not achieve it.  It needs to be achievable too, as if not, then there is no hope - no hope means lack of motivation and a non-starter!

R=Realistic - you need to believe you can acheive your goal - make sure that you can do wha you set out to do. Check - can you really do this? Have you got the time? Have you got the resources? Have you got the authority?  If not, go back a stage and set a goal that is a step towards your overall objective, that you can take.  Once more, if your goal is not realistic, then there is no hope of achieving it.
 

But you need to be careful of this – because some people may tell you there is no hope and your goal is just a dream – and this may not be the case at all, but just their opinion!
 

T=Time frame - you need to set yourself a deadline for achieving your goal - if you don't you'll always put it off.  Unless a goal has a time frame it is always something that you are planning to do that never gets done!  Give yourself enough time to complete it though.

So putting SMART into action here, let's create two goals – one SMART, one not!

a) you want to write some songs for a gig.

b) By 30 April 2007, you want to have written music and lyrics for 2 new songs that will complete your set list for your gig at the Social in Nottingham on 30 June 2007.

Which goal do you think you have more chance of achieving?  Goal b, is both SMART and Simple!

So, now that you know how to make your goals KISS, take another look at the ultimate dreams you wrote down last week and alter them to make them more achievable.  Once you've done this you can then create some short and medium term goals that will help you reach your ultimate dream.

Any thoughts or problems, please comment me!

Next time, we'll take a look at where you are currently at, with your music career goals.

Hope to hear from you soon .

Have fun...Linz xx

So this is my first ever blog and it's all Moby's fault!

 

Moby, my favourite blogger ever, has inspired me to start writing – his blogs are a mixture of personal anecdotes as well as all things Political – whatever the subject, they are always a pleasure to read!

 

My blog? Well it's going to be all about you - how to get on in your music career and how to juggle your music career with the other stuff in your life.  Unless of course you want me to ramble on about me – no, I didn't think so!

 

So where to start?  The place where I always start when taking on a new client…where are you going with your music career and I use the word 'career'  in broad terms – as your music may be a hobby and you may wish it to remain so. 

 

So, what is your ultimate music career dream?  To help you work that out, ask yourself how you would respond to these further questions: 

 

If your success is guaranteed in the music world/industry, what would you do? Who would you be? What would you want to achieve?

 

Take a few moments to think about your response and then write a short paragraph, or use bullet points to succinctly state your ultimate music career dream.  Use your gut instincts here and be as creative as you want to – remember your success is guaranteed!

 

For instance as an unsigned artist you may state:  You want to be a successful singer songwriter with a publishing and record deal, who tours the world and plays to thousands of people at every gig. 

 

Or you may state:  You want to set up a music school for disadvantaged young people in a deprived area of your city.

 

As a signed act you may state: you want your music career to have longevity and to continue to write a string of no.1 hits not only for yourself, but for other artists.

 

I could go on and on….!

 

If you're thinking, why is it so important to write down your ultimate dreams?  The answer is that by writing them down they will feel more tangible and not just something hazy in your head and the key thing is to be as detailed as possible.

 

I hope you have fun with this exercise.  And of course you can apply it to every area of your life - not just to your music! 

 

If you are also wondering why do you need to know where you are heading with your music – let me illustrate it this way – you wouldn't get on a coach or train without knowing your destination, right? (unless you wanted to go on a grand mystery tour!).  And with the coaching that I do with artists and those in a non-performing role in the music industry, it's the same thing.  We both need to look at where you are heading before you can start the journey to get there.

 

Please comment me with your dreams and thoughts, I'd love to hear them…and in my next blog you can start looking at turning those dreams into real goals!

 

Linz