Wenesday 1st March, 2023
It’s the beginning of a new month, & I’m finally getting into the Spring of things.
The past while has been quite overwhelming. Trying to hold together a myriad of outputs & inputs can be a little too much for my tiny human mind to process. We don’t often have the bandwidth. Add onto this the ‘expectations’ of an industry, of your peers, & yourself… then you start to build a wall of tasks keeping you from any kind of work flow.
What’s been gnawing at my little ankles lately is the yearning to get out. If I could head off to an isolated place for a week, ditch all of these obligations & perpetual drownings, then maybe I could ‘solve’ my career like a puzzle… Which is an approach I’ve not considered yet.
My housemate & I have been playing a game lately. A game full of puzzles. While watching them try out different solutions to a particular puzzle, I was solving it in my head. Eventually they asked me for help, I took over, & had it done pretty quickly. Then they said: “Nathan, you’re actually smart”… & from this friend, a compliment is a heavy sequence of words. So I took it seriously.
It’s been a very very long time since I’ve felt ‘smart’. The world I’m working in doesn’t really work for my type of straightforward, step-by-step approach. The music industry, & the arts worlds in general demand a lot of lateral thinking. When you’re planning a creative or business strategy, you need to consider the context of what you’re doing… the time & the times you’re working in, then people working alongside you, the hearts & minds of the people you’re creating for… the list goes on. You need to think differently, ya gotta stand out among these constant crashing waves. When your competition is creative… then you gotta get MORE creative.
My strengths aren’t context. I’m not naturally suited to social media for this reason. My sense of the broader culture is just not that sharp. My thoughts usually exist within my body, or within the ethereal concepts of philosophy & poetry. So I’m really good with metaphor, with conceptualising & constructing creative worlds… & that’s why I’m ‘the artist’ I guess… But I would appreciate a contextual thinker. Someone to place me in the world & keep an eye, & an ear to the ground, someone with a finger on the pulse.
Anyways, I never planned on writing about this idea… but I will try to get away for a little bit. Remove myself from people, from the undercurrent media pulling me into a stupor, from the weekly (joyful) obligations. I’ll report here when I actually do that.
So what is it that I want to write about this week? (& how can I make it short?)
Let’s get into the awkwardness of reaching out. These days I’ve been meaning to reach out to strangers, companies, agencies, decision makers… etc… Cause it’s a tough hurdle to leap & it’s pretty much unavoidable. So what are the tips I have for reaching out? (keep in mind that I’m not exactly practicing what I’m preaching here… but I’m trying to)
Be specific with who you reach out to. Make sure you know what they do, & that it relates to you… this takes so much time to do, & it feels like a waste of time, but it’ll save you so much rejection & time in the long run.
Be nice, polite, & to the point! Some people are quite demanding when they reach out, & it’s all about what you can do for them. It’s VERY easy to ignore rude people. So just double check that you have the right name, that you’ve at least asked how they are or wished them well, & that you’ve thanked them for their time. (& try to include your ask early on) - *Also, as a side note - follow them on socials if you’re contacting them there. Why would they respond to you if you don’t value what they’re doing online?
Give it a shot… no matter who they are, how successful they seem… reach out to them anyways. People are surprisingly available. At least in Ireland, & definitely on LinkedIn for some weird reason. So be sure to reach out wherever you can, if you have some value to offer them, then they would be lucky to meet with you.
Finally, cause I said it’d be quick… FOLLOW UP… please follow up. Send another message just to remind them who you are. Write: “hey, I know you’re super busy, so I thought I’d follow up so that the email/message didn’t get lost in the mountain”. Wait at least a week though… & maybe don’t follow up more than twice. Sometimes people will actively dislike you for bothering them. (then again, some stories speak to the contrary)
So that’ll be all for this week my pretties.
I shall talk to you soon,
Nathan
