This is the season when music students are hearing about the results of their auditions: from graduate schools, fellowships and summer programs, as well as professional orchestra and other ensemble auditions. With so much competition for a limited number of spots, rejection is a common phenomenon. In two of my recent coaching groups at the Yale School of Music, we went …
Finding Your Passions for Success: Think Expansively To Find Your Sweet Spot
I am a huge advocate of doing what you love and finding passion in your life’s work. Passion is at the heart of entrepreneurship. Not only is it incredibly motivating to have your work reflect what you love but chances are that you will be more successful if you are able to able to find happiness in your life, including …
Managing The Unpredictable: 5 Steps to Help Manage Your Freelance Finances
If you are a freelance musician, you undoubtedly love the fact that you are making a living from your passion, together with freedom that comes along with being in charge of your own life. And yet, that life is fraught with uncertainty, particularly related to your finances: Can I really make money as a freelancer? How can I make money …
1
The Elements of Career Success: 6 Steps towards Fulfillment
What are the common elements in creating a successful and fulfilling career? This question is at the heart of my work with professional musicians and arts leaders, as well as creative business professionals—in short, anyone who is committed to incorporating her passions into her work. Here are the 6 steps to creating a career that is not only fulfilling but …
SMART Goals for SMART Music Entrepreneurs: How to Make Your Dreams Come True
Musicians abound with passion and creative ideas. For many, however, this abundance of ideas can be paralyzing since they find it hard to figure out which ones to harness, let alone how to make them happen. Here are two ways to help take those great ideas and make them happen: 1. Write down your goals 2. Set a SMART Goal …
The Magic of Group Coaching: Yale Music Entrepreneurs Discover The Power of Group Wisdom and Support
This semester, I launched a new program at Yale: group career coaching. What is Group Coaching? Group coaching is a magical process whereby a small set of peers who share a common goal meet under the guidance of a facilitator/coach to learn new information and share their experience on topics of interest to the group as a way of advancing …
Powerful Questioning: A Key to Effective Communication for Today’s Music Entrepreneurs and Arts Leaders
Over the course of a week, think of all the situations where musicians and arts leaders different situations ask questions: To gather information To get to know someone else better in a networking or in an interpersonal situation To solve problems and clear up potential conflicts with collaborators or colleagues Asking questions is the most basic form of communication, designed …
Top 10 Tips Time Management Tips for Music Entrepreneurs
This year, one of my biggest discoveries was Quadrant 2 time management, the strategy that has you focusing on what is really important to you as opposed to what is urgent, and realigning your time to honor and commit to Quadrant 2 activities each week (for more on this, see tips 2 and 3 below). Q2 time management is helping …
Creating Success in a DIY World: 4 YSM Music Entrepreneurs Share Their Insights
One of the highlights of my semester is when I invite recent alumni from the Yale School of Music to speak to our students about how they created their career success. My students are consistently impressed and amazed that musicians who are a mere 5-8 years ahead of them are already successfully wending their way through the world of music. …
Crafting a Great Speech to Engage Today’s Audiences: How Musicians Can Become Ambassadors for Music
I am passionate about the importance of speaking to audiences about music because it is an opportunity to bring our audiences into our world and let them discover the transformative power of music. Over the past few weeks, I have been addressing this topic both with my students at the Yale School of Music, as well as at a wonderful …