How do you make a living?

If you feel anything less than ecstatic about the answer, here’s a recipe for professional fulfillment you might want to try:

1) You start by listening for your unique calling–that small, still Voice inside you that guides your decisions when you are wise enough to follow. AVOID THIS STEP AT YOUR OWN RISK.

2) Next you explore the various career paths that seem to fit–the jobs, titles, locations, organizations, gigs, clients, customers, deals, partnerships, and other relationships that make up the whole of your ever-evolving career model.

3) Gradually, you find out where what you naturally do meets up with what others naturally need: your singular contribution to the world around you. This is your niche, your purpose, your destiny and nobody else can fill the position.

The only problem is that many of us have been taught that our professional success is an issue of achievement alone, without regard to whether we feel stoked about our work or what the net result is for the lives of others.

The next time you feel uncertainty or confusion about your professional life, try asking yourself “What do I feel called to do and in what unique way does it benefit those around me?” See what that small Voice has to say now…

Join this SOS podcast Part 3 in The Prosperous Musician series about tuning up your financial vibration and explore the artist’s path toward musical and professional fulfillment.

 

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What’s your story and how do you tell it?

Are you a provocateur? An abstract, evocative storyteller? A painter of fables? An abstract teller of tales? All (or none) of the above?

When music and lyrics are understood in dramatic terms, rather than in purely musical terms, the process of songwriting becomes less about verses, choruses, lines, or hooks and more about characters, actions, scenes, and narration. A switch of context like this can help you bring some fresh material to the table and enliven your music in some interesting ways.

Listen to this special SOS episode (recorded on the road in rural Massachusetts) for a glimpse into JP’s understanding of the relationship between music and drama. Apply the concepts to your own writing and the results might surprise and delight you!

 

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