How to know when to let go (Day 1)

You may be content with where your music career is at. Your day job might be lucrative. Your relationship might make you feel safe. But are you happy?

If you are happy, great! You're exactly where you need to be right now. But if there's a part of you that keeps nagging at you to chase another dream... you've got to listen to that voice.

In this vlog, David shares about drowning the golden goose.

00:00 – Making the difficult decision to leave
02:33 – What David plans to do next
06:40 – How to know when to let go

I didn't know I was going to do it this way. I didn't know I was going to do it today. But I decided to step away. There's this client I've been working with for years now and... I was having a good day today. I felt pretty good after working out, getting some writing done on my book, and working with my partners and collaborators on their ventures, really making good progress in every area.

And then I went to look at this client's messages and I just felt this suffocating energy. Like, mostly around my heart. I just felt so, like, "I can't breathe, man." And I didn't think I was going to sit here and do this video today either. I thought it was all going to be meticulously planned out and we'd get this vlog going in December. Which, I don't know, maybe that's the way things will go anyway.

Like, I'm a mess, right? I worked out. I haven't showered. I got up and did my stuff. That's it. I haven't gone to anything else today. I've barely had enough to eat for lunch.

But I got an email from him, and those messages, compared to everything else that I had been Doing throughout the day, which felt so good to me. I noticed the contrast right away. I just felt like crushed, like such suffocating energy.

And he was telling me, "Yeah, you know, I can give you maybe half or a third of the work that I've been giving you now in January. But the way things are going, it's just not looking good. Things are going to shift."

And I was like, you know, I'm kind of on a two-week low production bubble right now, so I've been resting a lot and I'm still trying to get more rest because I'm doing a lot better. But I still have a little way to go to get to 100%.

And so, when I read that message, I was like, "I've already been thinking about leaving at the end of this break, but it seems like the universe wants this to happen sooner." So now is the time for me to step away from that.
So, I do want to talk about when it's time to move on and that'll happen a little later in this video. I think you're going to get something from it for yourself.

The first thing I need to share with you though, is what's next for me. What am I going to be doing moving forward?

There are two primary things and there are many other things under those two major categories, but number one is the work I do at Content Marketing Musician.

Until now, you've kind of known me as the music entrepreneur guy, and that was my brand. And that was what I was working on.
But things change, things shift, and it's just time to update everything. It's time to update our content, our products, and the way that we communicate with you and interface with you. I think that's become a greater focus than ever.

Having gone through a little bit of hardship in my own life in the last two, or three months, a bit of a "Dark Night of the Soul," I got to the point where I was like...

And I think it's a common experience with a lot of people that they go through hardship and they're like, "Oh man, I understand sometimes when people are going through hard stuff." And maybe that's why I needed to go through it so that I could get back to focusing on serving and helping other people.

It's not about what I can accomplish so much as what I can do for you. So, what we're doing at Content Marketing Musician, we're looking forward to planning four live events per year for you. That's an opportunity to get together in person and shake hands and hug if you're a hugger... if that's something that you want to do.

We're keeping all the resources we've developed to this point to help people build their music careers, but you can expect that we're going to be expanding our offerings a little bit more into independent entrepreneurship and creativity and stuff like that.

But we're keeping everything we have and we're making it better and we're organizing and categorizing it to make that experience even better for you as well.

The other thing that I'm getting into now... I've decided now's the time to make this transition into digital marketing, which for some of you, like probably sounds super obvious. And maybe for me. I just needed an outside perspective to know that that's what I'd be doing moving forward.

But I had some good conversations with other business owners, and they asked me about my goals and where I wanted to take things and they're like, "You know, you created a great job for yourself, and you get lots of freedom. There's nothing wrong with what you've created, but if you want to create something bigger than yourself, and have different results in your life, you might want to consider trying some other things."

And so, I've decided to offer digital marketing services again. The lowdown is I have all the contacts, whether it's advertising people, social media people, videographers, photographers, or website developers. I have multiple contacts in practically every category.

Plus, I have personal experience in practically every area of digital marketing. So, it felt like the right thing to get into right now because everyone needs it.

And things are changing so fast and there are efficiencies and productivity benefits that you can tap into now that you weren't able to do before. But it's sort of hard to do if you don't have your head on the ground as I do.

 

I'm constantly looking at what's new, what's coming, and what I could use to make things more streamlined and efficient in my own business. So, whether it's a website, a logo, or online marketing in any capacity, I'm your guy, and you can let me know if you'd like to hire me for your next job.

As for when to leave a job, a business, or a relationship. I can't tell you when that moment is. But chances are it's not like a spontaneous decision. It's not something that just came to you today out of nowhere. If it came to you today and it continues to show up two weeks, two months, and two years from now, you've got a pretty strong case that it may be time to move on from whatever that is that you've been thinking about moving on from.

And so that's a big piece. It's like, have you been ruminating on it for a while? Have you been thinking about it for a while?

And I think we have trouble sometimes leaving those things because we're afraid. We're scared. We're not sure if we're going to land on our feet, but if you want to make any kind of quantum leaps in your life and not just keep doing the same things that you've always done, hoping for different results. At some point, you've got to say, "Band-Aid off," right? Rip it off. It hurts, of course. And it's scary to think about moving on but moving on is generally a good thing. It might be the death of one thing, but it's the rebirth of another.

Some other signs that you need to look out for. If you're sacrificing your happiness, that's a big one. And you may not notice while you're in the muck of it. That's kind of the problem. If you step away for a couple of weeks and you feel relieved and relaxed. And you go back to it, and you feel constrained, and frustrated, or irritated, or angry.

You know it's time if it's sacrificing your happiness. If there's something that you enjoy more with greater consistency, that might be another sign. If there are other activities, other work, or other careers that you find that you've been delving into and enjoying more, that might be another sign for you to move on.

If you seem to go through multiple burnouts while occupying the same job, or being in the same relationship, or building the same business. It could very well be that it's not a great fit for you either, because things that are a good fit for you tend to energize you, tend to give you energy. And of course, the things that you don't like don't.

Thanks for watching. I'll be back again with another vlog.